Miss Kinwellmarshe, taking the match, turned and went to the kitchen. She’s got a butt-end on her like a bumble-bee, said the voice of Ma Gall, very clearly, inside Monica’s head,—so clearly that Monica started.

“Now, let’s do some work,” said Revelstoke, who appeared to have enjoyed this encounter. “You’ve been with the ineffable Molloy for a while, Sir Benny tells me. An admirable coach, with a splendid, policeman-like attitude toward the art of song. Sing me a few of the things he’s taught you.”

Unlike Molloy, he made no move to accompany her, so Monica sat at the piano and sang half-a-dozen English folksongs. She could not have explained why it was so, but the knowledge that Miss Kinwellmarshe was within earshot had a tonic effect on her, and she sang them well.

“The accompaniments are charming, aren’t they?” said Revelstoke. “Cecil Sharp had a delightful small talent for such work. But of course folksongs are not meant to be accompanied. Just sing me Searching for Lambs without all that agreeable atmospheric deedle-deedle.”

So Monica sang the song again. If he thinks I’ve never sung this without accompaniment he certainly doesn’t know Murtagh Molloy, she thought.

“Not bad. You have a true ear, and a nice sense of rhythm.—Ah, here is dear Miss Kinwellmarshe with the tea. I won’t ask you to take a cup, Miss—I forget for the moment—yes, of course, Miss Gall, but you shall have one when you’ve finished singing. Now, Brum Benny tells me you have a special line in Victorian drawing-room ballads—such a novelty, and so original of you to have worked it up in a time when that kind of music is so undeservedly neglected. I understand that Tosti’s Good-Bye! is one of your specialties. I can hardly wait. Will you sing it now, please. You won’t mind if we have tea as you do so? The perfect accompaniment for the song, don’t you think?”

Miss Kinwellmarshe had laid herself out voluptuously on the work table, pillowing her head on a pile of manuscript and permitting her long and beautifully wavy hair to hang over the edge; the splendour of her figure in this position was somewhat marred by the dirtiness of the soles of her feet, but it was clear that she aimed at large effects, and scorned trifles.

“I haven’t sung that song for several months,” said Monica. Indeed, she had learned to be thoroughly ashamed of Tosti under the rough but kindly guidance of Molloy. How could Sir Benedict have mentioned it! These English! Sly, sneaky, mocking! You never knew when you had them.

“But after we have put a favourite work aside for a time, we often find that we have unconsciously arrived at a new understanding of it,” said Revelstoke, and he was smiling like a demon.

“I’d really rather not,” said Monica.

“But I wish it. And I dislike having to remind you that if I am to teach you anything, you must do as I wish.” His smile was now from the teeth only.

He just wants to roast me in front of that grubby bitch, thought Monica. I’ll walk out.—I’ll tell Sir Benedict I won’t bear it. I’ll go home.

But she met Revelstoke’s eyes, and she sang. She was angrier than she had ever been in her life. She hated this man who dared to show himself naked, and whose talk was one smooth, sneering incivility after another; she hated that nearly naked tart lolling on the table. She hated Sir Benedict, who had been making fun of her behind her back. She was so full of passionate hatred that her head seemed ready to burst. But she had not spent six months with Murtagh Molloy for nothing. She took possession of herself, she breathed the muhd, and she sang.

She finished, and the seven bars of diminuendo regret on the piano were completed. There was silence. The first to break it was Miss Kinwellmarshe, and her comment was a derisive, dismissive, derogatory monosyllable.

“Not at all,” said Revelstoke; “and let me remind you, Persis, that I am the critic here, and any comment will come from me, not you. Take yourself off, you saucy puss, and do some typing, or wash up, or something.” Rising, he hauled Miss Kinwellmarshe off the table and pushed her toward the kitchen, giving her a resounding slap on her splendid buttocks. She repeated her previous comment with hauteur, but she went.

“Now,” said he, “let’s get down to business. What’s that song all about?”

Monica had occasionally been questioned in this way by Molloy, and she always hated it. A song was a song, and it was about what it said; it was almost bad luck to probe it and pull it to pieces, for it might never regain its shape. But Revelstoke had made her sing against her will, and she knew that he could make her speak. Might as well give in at once and get it over.

“It’s about people saying good-bye.”

“People?”

“Lovers, I suppose.”

“Why are they saying good-bye?”

“I don’t know; the song doesn’t say.”

“Doesn’t it? Who wrote it?”

“Tosti.”

“The music, yes. When did he live?”

“Oh, quite recently; Mr Molloy once saw him.”

“Who wrote the words?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“Oh, then I assume that you consider the words of small importance in comparison with the music. Do you think it is good music?”

“No, not really.”

“How would you describe it?”

“A sort of drawing-room piece, I suppose.”

“Yes, yes; but technically?”

“A ballad?”

“No, not a ballad. It is hardly a tune at all—certainly not a hummable sort of tune like a ballad. It’s what’s called an aria parlante. Know what that means?”

“A sort of speaking song?”

“A declamatory song. So there must be something to declaim. The words were written by a Scottish Victorian novelist and poet called George John Whyte-Melville. I see that your copy of the song gives his initials as ‘G.T.’ and robs him of his hyphen; just shows what the firm of Ricordi thought about him. Ever heard of him?”

“Never.”

“An interesting man. Quite successful, but always underestimated his own work and was apt to run himself down, in a gentlemanly sort of way. Wrote a lot about fox-hunting, but there is always a melancholy strain in his work which conflicts oddly with the subjects. His biographer thought it was because his married life was most unhappy. Does that seem to you to throw any light on that song?”

“It’s very unhappy. You mean that perhaps it wasn’t lovers, but himself and his wife he was writing about?”

“I am charmed by your implied opinion of the married state. Married people are sometimes lovers, and lovers are not always happy. Why are they unhappy, do you suppose?”

“Well, usually because they can’t get married. Or because one of them may be married already.”

“There can be other reasons. Read me the first verse.”

In a constricted tone, and without expression, Monica read:

“You see? A succession of pictures—the fall of the leaf, the birds going south, a rising storm, and darkness falling. And it all adds up to—what?”

This is worse than Eng. Lit. at school, thought Monica. But she answered, “Autumn, I suppose.”

“Autumn, you suppose. Now let me read you the second verse, with a little more understanding than you choose to give to your own reading—