'It interrupts one so; but turn the leaves at the proper time.'
'Captain Hammersley will do that better than I,' said Shafto, drawing almost sulkily away, while the former resumed his place by Finella, with an unmistakable smile rippling over his face.
This song, which, it would seem, Hammersley had given her, was an old one, long since forgotten, named the 'Trysting Place,' and jealous anger gathered in Shafto's heart as he listened and heard Hammersley's voice blend with Finella's in the last line of each verse:
'We met not in the sylvan scene
Where lovers wish to meet,
Where skies are bright and woods are green,
And bursting blossoms sweet;
But in the city's busy din,
Where Mammon holds his reign,
Sweet intercourse we sought to win
'Mid fashion, guile, and gain;
Above us was a murky sky,
Around a crowded space,
Yet dear, my love, to thee and me,
Was this, our trysting place.'
'They are who say Love only dwells
'Mid sunshine, light, and flowers;
Alike to him are gloomy cells
Or gay and smiling bowers;
Love works not on insensate things
His sweet and magic art;
No outward shrine arrests his wings,
His home is in the heart;
And dearest hearts like thine and mine,
With rapture must retrace—
How often Love has deigned to shine
On this our trysting place.'
'Miss Melfort, you have sung it more sweetly than ever!' said Hammersley in a low voice as he bent over her.
'Confound him!' muttered Shafto to himself; 'where was this trysting place? I feel inclined to put a charge of shot into him to-morrow. I will, too, if the day is foggy!'
Finella, though pressed, declined to sing more, as the Misses Kippilaw, who were rather irrepressible young ladies, now proposed a carpet-dance, and she drew on her gloves; and while she fumbled away, almost nervously, with the buttoning of one, she knew that Hammersley's eyes were lovingly and admiringly bent on her, till he came to the rescue, and did the buttoning required; and to Shafto it seemed the process was a very protracted one, and was a pretty little connivance, as in reality it was.
Miss Prim, Lady Fettercairn's companion, was summoned, and she—poor creature—had to furnish music for the occasion, till at last Finella good-naturedly relieved her.
So a carpet-dance closed the evening, and then Shafto, though an indifferent waltzer, thought he might excel in a square dance with Finella; but he seldom shone in conversation at any time, and on this occasion his attempts at it proved a great failure, and when he compared this with the animation of Hammersley and Finella in the Lancers, he was greatly puzzled and secretly annoyed. The former did not seem to undergo that agony so often felt by Shafto, of having out-run all the topics of conversation, or to have to rack his brain for anecdotes or jokes, but to be able to keep up an easy flow of well-bred talk on persons, places, and things, which seemed to amuse Finella excessively, as she smiled brightly and laughed merrily while fanning herself, and looking more sparkling and piquante than ever.