‘How do you do, Mr. Askam?’ said the girl, colouring a little, as she rose from the music-stool and made a kind of bow.
‘Now, don’t let Mr. Askam prevent us from hearing your song, child,’ said Magdalen, as Otho seated himself near her, and began to talk in a low voice.
Eleanor had watched the scene with a sense of displeasure, ill-defined, but strong. She now perceived that Ada had become nervous—that she cleared her throat, and did not seem quite able to begin. Thinking it was too bad of Magdalen to treat the girl in this way, and insist upon her singing before two perfect strangers, when she had very likely expected no other audience than her hostess herself, Eleanor, with the instinct which never failed her in such cases, rose and went to the piano.
‘What is your song called, Miss Dixon?’ she asked, kindly. ‘I will turn over the leaves for you, if I may.’
‘Oh, thank you, Miss Askam!’ said Ada, evidently much relieved.
Eleanor casually wondered why she should insist upon saying the name of every person to whom she spoke every time she addressed them. Magdalen and Otho interrupted their conversation for a moment, to look and listen, then resumed it as if no one but themselves were present.
Ada began to sing, in a fresh, tuneful soprano voice, a simple unaffected ditty which Eleanor rightly conjectured had been chosen for, rather than by her. It was a bright, rather pathetic little song, all about faith and love and the rewards of constancy, and when it was over Eleanor was able conscientiously to say—
‘Thank you very much. It is a very pretty song.’
Otho also murmured something, intended perhaps for thanks; and then Eleanor, who felt jarred and vexed in every nerve, from the uncongenial conversation in which she had lately partaken, wished Magdalen good afternoon.
‘Oh, are you going?’ exclaimed the latter. ‘Why must you go so soon?’