"J'ai pris un pavé, trouvé
Au fond de cratère
Et quelqu'un m'a dit, Mon Dieu!
Plus dur pavé ne se peut
Trouver dans la terre.
Moi, qui sais ce que je sais—
J'ai pleuré sans lui rien dire,
Car à ton cœur je pensais—
Sans rien dire... Sans rien dire...."
"I always like songs about flowers, don't you?" queried their hostess of the world.
And "Here you are at last," her husband remarked to Cyprian before Muriel's curving lips could make the most of that joke; "you really should not spoil Ferlie."
"She is such a highly-strung child," the Hon. Mrs. Porter volunteered languidly, waving a gold-tipped ostrich feather, though, had she stopped to consider the matter, she would have discovered that she was cold in her chair near the door.
"Never yet," said Colonel Maddock, who adopted the criticizing privileges of an unofficial uncle in the house, "have I met the fortunate mother whose children were not exceptionally highly-strung. What does the term mean exactly?"
"That they need a disciplined existence," said Mr. Carmichael. "All these modern methods of making things easy for children are wrong. Life is not easy. They must be fitted to overcome difficulties."
"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control!" mocked Muriel, with accusing eyes on Captain Wright who was trying to press her hand behind the music-stand. "I cannot bear a man, particularly, without self-control; and the child is father to the man—in Ferlie's case."
Cyprian dejectedly decided that he had let himself go, rather, at the scene of the proposal. She had looked so infinitely desirable.
"Ferlie was frightened," he said, rather lamely. "I think, perhaps, the servants——"
"There!" cried Mrs. Carmichael. "What did you tell Robin about English servants?"