"And the dish gives us indigestion," said Madame Valtesi. "I once spent a week with an aunt who had taken to Litany, as other people take to dram-drinking, you know. We went to Litany every day, and I never had so much dyspepsia before in my life. Litany, taken often, is more indigestible than lobster at midnight."
"How exquisite the moon is!" said Lady Locke, rising and going towards the window.
"The moon is the religion of the night," said Esmé. "Go out into the garden all of you, and I will sing to you a song of the moon. It is very beautiful. I shall give it to Jean de Reszke, I think. My voice will sound better from a distance. Good voices always do."
He sat down at the piano, and they strolled out through the French windows into the green and silent pleasaunce.
His voice was clear and open, and he spoke rather than sang the following verses, while they stood listening till the rippling accompaniment trickled away into silence:—
Oh! beautiful moon with the ghostly face,
Oh! moon with the brows of snow,
Rise up, rise up from your slumbering place,
And draw from your eyes the veil,
Lest my wayward heart should fail
In the homage it fain would bestow—
Oh! beautiful moon with the ghostly face,
Oh! moon with the brows of snow.
Oh! beautiful mouth like a scarlet flow'r,
Oh! mouth with the wild, soft breath,
Kiss close, kiss close in the dream-stricken bow'r,
And whisper away the world;
Till the wayward wings are furled,
And the shadow is lifted from death—
Oh! beautiful mouth like a scarlet flow'r,
Oh! mouth with the wild, soft breath!
Oh! beautiful soul with the outstretched hands,
Oh! soul with the yearning eyes,
Lie still, lie still in the fairy lands
Where never a tear may fall;
Where no voices ever call
Any passion-act, strange or unwise—
Oh! beautiful soul with the outstretched hands,
Oh! soul with the yearning eyes!
The song was uttered with so much apparent passion that Lady Locke felt tears standing in her eyes when the last words ceased on the cool air of the night.
"How beautiful," she said involuntarily to Lord Reggie, who happened to be standing beside her. "And how wrong!"
"Surely that is a contradiction in terms," the boy said. "Nothing that is beautiful can possibly be wrong."
"Then how exquisitely right some women have been whom Society has hounded out of its good graces," Madame Valtesi remarked.