'You have Love and Death there, I see,' Earle said, stooping down. 'Please, not that.'
'Why not? It is a great favourite of mine.'
'So it is of mine. That is the reason I didn't want you to sing it to all these people. Some day I shall ask you for it.'
Without replying, she put the Sands o' Dee before her and sang.
Earle waited almost breathlessly for the first note. He was passionately fond of music, and he felt somehow as if an untrue or unsweet note from Silvia Stirling would have jarred him more than he could bear. But the voice and the manner of singing satisfied his fastidious ear absolutely. The sympathy which made her face so interesting thrilled in the pathetic tone of her voice, and Earle had never been affected by music before as he was now by her rendering of this simple song.
As she rose from the piano, she raised her eyes a moment to his: that strange meeting glance that strikes down into the soul, and in which thought seems to answer thought, passed between them like a revelation. It was only an instant, but it was a momentous one to each.
Wilfred Earle walked home through Dreamland. He was fascinated past control, and yet was angry with the fascination, and half wished for the spell to be broken. What strange fate had attracted his life suddenly towards this other, against whom all his prejudices revolted? Why did those clear eyes haunt him so? Had he, after all his sham fancies, struck on the true vein of love? Was this love, or only a half-willing fascination, that had changed the face of the world to-night?
'This is too absurd!' he exclaimed angrily. 'Here I have met just with what I most disapprove of—a public speaker and an American, and I can't get rid of the idea of her! I must go to-morrow and be disillusionised.'