“Ah! fill the Cup, what boots it to repeat,
How Time is slipping underneath our feet:
Better be jocund with the fruitful grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter fruit.”
It was Liza Lehmann’s setting, and the accompaniment thundered and rumbled, and then softened down to a plaintive, appealing melody. It might have been the voice of Circe herself, beckoning, alluring, promising....
“Ah! love, could you and I with Fate conspire
To grasp the sorry scheme of things entire
Would we....”
After all, why had she so many scruples? How did she come to be possessed of them? Why did she hesitate to grasp her happiness?
She looked up and found Colin Paton’s eyes fixed upon her, and they wore an expression she did not know.