"Put off, put off,
And row with speed
For now is the time and the hour of need."
Miss Erroll sang, too; her voice leading—a charmingly trained, but childlike voice, of no pretensions, as fresh and unspoiled as the girl herself.
There was an interval after "Castles in the Air"; Eileen sat, with her marvellously white hands resting on the keys, awaiting further suggestion.
"Sing that funny song, Uncle Philip!" pleaded Billy; "you know—the one about:
"She hit him with a shingle
Which made his breeches tingle
Because he pinched his little baby brother;
And he ran down the lane
With his pants full of pain.
Oh, a boy's best friend is his mother!"
"Billy!" gasped Miss Erroll.
Selwyn, mortified, said severely: "That is a very dreadful song, Billy—"
"But you taught it to me—"
Eileen swung around on the piano stool, but Selwyn had seized Billy and was promising to bolo him as soon as he wished.
And Eileen, surveying the scene from her perch, thought that Selwyn's years seemed to depend entirely upon his occupation, for he looked very boyish down there on his knees among the children; and she had not yet forgotten the sunken pallor of his features in the Park—no, nor her own question to him, still unanswered. For she had asked him who that woman was who had been so direct in her smiling salute. And he had not yet replied; probably never would; for she did not expect to ask him again.