"Swinburne's 'Ask Nothing More.'"
He raised his eyebrows. "A man's song?"
"Yes. But you know I often sing it; and I want to . . . to-night."
"Qu'y a-t-il, petite soeur?" he asked, for her manner puzzled him.
"Rien . . . rien de tout. Commence."
And he played the soft chords, pregnant with pleading, that usher in the song.
A moment later, Lenox, leaning back in a canvas chair, sat upright, and took the cigar from his lips.
"A woman singing? Jove—it's Quita!" he added under his breath. Then he remained motionless, straining his eyes for a sight of her between the dancing flames.
Clear and unfaltering her voice soared into the night; and as the song swept on, through pleading to impassioned longing, the whole awakened heart of her took fire from the poet's faultless phrases; till, in the last verse, it spoke straightly and simply to her husband, as though they two stood alone in the interstellar spaces of the universe.
"I who have love, and no more,
Give you but love of you, sweet;
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings let him soar.
Mine is the heart at your feet . . .
Here that must love you . . . love you, to live!"