"Come," she said, briskly, as she rose and went to the piano, "I am going to put you to the test. I make all my new friends submit to it; and according as they pass through it I regard them afterwards. I am going to play three funeral marches—Handel's, Beethoven's, and Mendelssohn's. When the person experimented on prefers a certain one of them, I consider her—I have not tried the experiment on a gentleman as yet—merely emotional and commonplace; therefore I don't care much for her. If she likes a certain other one, I think she is rather more intellectual, with some dramatic sensitiveness; and then I like her a good deal better. When she likes the third, then I think she must have the divinest sympathies, and I am ready to fall in love with her."
She had sat down to the piano.
"But the peril of failure is too great; I dare not risk it," said Will. "It is as hard a trial as the three caskets in the 'Merchant of Venice;' only, if the prize were to be the same, the chance——"
He had spoken quite thoughtlessly; but he saw in a moment, by the pain and confusion of the young actress, what a blunder he had made.
"Pray don't mind what I said, Miss Brunel," he urged. "I was talking to you without thinking, as I should have talked to Dove. I will submit to the three funeral marches, if you like——"
"I will spare you," she said, good-naturedly. "If you had some of your Suabian songs here just now, I should sing them to you. But really it seems a pity to use up such fine weather indoors; are you particularly engaged to-day?"
"I have no engagement if I can be of service to you."
"Mr. Anerley, I am neither a bulbul nor a gazelle. Shall I be trespassing on your time if I ask you to take a walk with me?"
"No."
"Lady Jane—Mrs. Christmas, I mean—and I take a stroll under the trees in Kensington Gardens every forenoon when I have no rehearsal."