Ah! hadst thou been less than thou art,
Or I more deserving of thee,
Thou mightst have been queen of my heart,
Thou mightst have been all things to me!’”
The exquisite tenor voice of the singer died away into mournful echoes; the low accompaniment wailed along the piano-keys like the cry of a breaking heart, then sobbed itself out—and silence reigned.
“There is still another verse, Mr. Winthrop,” said Lady Edith Chilton, softly.
“Which I shall not sing,” answered Guy Winthrop, coolly.
“Shall not?” the girl repeated after him, in a rising tone of displeasure. “No one ever says ‘shall not’ to me, Mr. Winthrop.”
“I suppose not”—Mr. Winthrop bowed slightly in homage to her fair young beauty—“therefore I say it. I—whom fate has placed so far beneath you, that I am not restricted to the sweet flatteries of your ladyship’s lordly admirers, nor yet to the passive subservience of your vassals—can afford to speak my mind!”
The long, magnificent drawing-room was deserted save for these two at the grand piano—Lady Edith Chilton of Chilton Park, Somersetshire, and Guy Winthrop, her young brother’s handsome tutor, who had just been singing at her request, the touching lines written in commemoration of Catlett’s love for the hapless Queen of Scots.