"Certainly, but I shall cultivate myopia."
"It's a short-sighted policy, Miss Dulcimer. Still, sustained by your presence, I feel I could flirt with the most beautiful and charming girl in the world. I could do it, even unsustained by the presence of the other girl."
"Oh, no! You must not flirt with me. I am the only Old Maid with whom flirtation is absolutely taboo."
"Then I consent," said Silverdale with apparent irrelevance. And seating himself on the piano stool, after carefully removing an epigram from the top of the instrument, he picked out "The Last Rose of Summer" with a facile forefinger.
"Don't!" said Lillie. "Stick to your lute."
Thus admonished, the nobleman took down Lillie's banjo, which was hanging on the wall, and struck a few passionate chords.
"Do you know," he said, "I always look on the banjo as the American among musical instruments. It is the guitar with a twang. Wasn't it invented in the States? Anyhow it is the most appropriate instrument to which to sing you my Fin de Siècle Love Song."
"For Heaven's sake, don't use that poor overworked phrase!"
"Why not? It has only a few years to live. List to my sonnet."
So saying, he strummed the strings and sang in an aristocratic baritone: