A sudden gleam of anger in her azure eyes reminded him of summer lightning in evening skies.
“At least you are very ungracious,” she said, petulantly; “you refuse out of mere perversity to sing that song for me, although you know I am not clever in singing, and have to learn after others like a parrot.”
An amused smile curved Guy Winthrop’s handsome mouth at her girlish pique.
“Pardon me, Lady Edith, but, to quote the compliments of your lordly admirers, you sing divinely, and even the dullest parrot might have learned that song during the three months in which I have daily sung it for you!”
“Well, then,” she confessed, frankly, “I like the song and like to hear you sing it. I regret that I have asked you to sing it once too often.”
“Once too often!” the young man rose to his feet, speaking impetuously, forgetting all restraint “Twice too often, twenty times too often for my peace of mind, Lady Edith, and you know it! You know as well as I that Catlett cherished no more hopeless love for beauteous Mary Stuart than I for you. Nay, start not—your brother’s humble tutor presumes not too much! He but tells you what you deserve to hear! Lady Edith, you knew when you asked me to teach you to sing, when you stood at my side in the pride of your high-born beauty and mingled your heavenly voice with mine, what the end must be! Perhaps you planned it all, you fair coquette!”
“Hush!” she cried, indignantly, but he went on, bitterly:
“You knew while I sung that song that it was but the expression of my love for you, that the heart throbbing bitterly below, lent its passion to the voice. There was your triumph, trifler with human hearts! Not content with your higher lovers, you bent from your loftly sphere to ensnare an humble heart—one weak enough to own your charms, but too lowly even to dare to hope!”
She stood still, confused, surprised, unable to speak one word in self-defense, her color rising and falling by turns, her lips half parted, the pale winter sunshine glinting through the stained-glass window crowning her golden head like a halo, making her seem not like a “trifler with human hearts,” but some fair saint or angel.
And ere she could recover herself, Guy Winthrop bowed with cold deference and withdrew.