That death I’d meekly meet,
For it were joy to lay me down
And perish at thy feet.”
It was the song of a slave to her Sultan, and glanced from the supreme of sentiment to the absurdity of burlesque. The song was the rage, but it was the power and passion of the singer that made it so. The sudden silvery laugh with which she finished the second verse, changing instantaneously from pathos to mocking gaiety—with a sudden change of metre—was a touch of originality that delighted her audience, and the song was applauded to the echo. Vansittart had moved into the music-room while she sang, as if drawn irresistibly by the power of song, and he was near enough to see his wife and Sefton talking to the singer; praising her, no doubt; uttering only the idle nothings which are spoken upon such occasions; but the idea that Eve should get to know this woman’s name, that they should talk together familiarly, and above all, that Lisa should know his name, and be able to approach wife or husband whenever some wild impulse urged her attack, was dreadful to him. How could he be sure henceforward that his secret would remain a secret? Was the Venetian a person to be trusted with the power of life or death?
He went back to the inner room, and was speedily absorbed in the duty of attending two colossal dowagers with monumental necks and shoulders, and diamonds as large as chandelier drops, to steer whom down a London staircase, past a stream of people who were ascending, was no trifling work. In the dining-room the débris of dessert and the ashes of cigarettes had given place to old Derby china, peaches, grapes, and strawberries, chicken salad, and foie gras sandwiches, and to this light refreshment people were crowding as eagerly as if dinner were an obsolete custom among the upper classes. Blocked in between two great ladies, pouring out champagne for one, and peeling a peach for another, Vansittart was secure from being pounced upon by Fiordelisa. He saw Sefton sitting with her at a little table in a corner, as he piloted his aristocratic three-deckers to the door. Sefton was plying her with champagne and lobster salad, and her joyous laugh rang out above society’s languid jabber.
He hated Sefton with all his heart that night; and he was too angry with Eve to speak to her, either as they waited in the hall for their carriage, or during the short drive home.
Never before had he treated her with this sullen rudeness. She followed him into his den, where he went for a final smoke before going upstairs. She stood by his chair for a few minutes in silence, watching him as he lighted his cigar, and then she said gently—
“What is the matter with you to-night, Jack? Have I vexed you?”
“I don’t know that you have vexed me—but I know that I am vexed.”
“About what?”