“Curiously blind all the world must be except Jowett——”
“Rather dreadful to know you’re the only wise man left——”
“Funny old stick!... But it’s only a pose really——”
“That exactly describes it——”
“Certainly the immortelle for Jowett!”...
But the party proper had not begun yet: Walter had not recited, and Laura Beamish’s guitar still lay in its case in the window-seat. Katie Deedes, who always kept a sort of tally of the good things said and awarded marks (as it were) to the sayers, had not thought of striking her balance yet.
“Give Dickie another cigarette, Cosimo, and then do let’s have a song, Laura!” Amory exclaimed; and Walter Wyron jumped up to get Laura’s instrument. It had long, many-coloured streamers of ribbon, which Walter disposed like serpentins about Laura as she sat, and Laura, turning pegs and tenderly strumming, asked what she should sing.
“Oh, ‘The Trees they do Grow High!’” said Amory quickly; “and then ‘The Sweet Primeroses’ and ‘The Clouded Yellow Butterfly,’ please!—Do stop wriggling against my knees, Cosimo—and oh, how exquisite!—look, the moon’s just coming in at the window!”
And Laura’s voice rose on the tender strumming as if a light and fluty sound planed over the intervals between chord and chord.
“Lovely!” Amory murmured.... “Please, that verse again, about the ribbon, Laura!”