She was just as commonplace in her greeting. He found them in the big drawing-room near the open window, and he had to walk the whole length of the room before they took any notice of the butler's announcement, or turned round. Lady Joan was knitting a large white shawl, and talking vigorously; Norah was lying silently on a couch, with her great sentimental eyes looking out into the garden; and the curate, who had also dropped in after dinner, was sipping his coffee and listening deferentially to his hostess. "Of course, indifference is the characteristic of the times, as you say, Mr. Johnson, but I am not sure that it matters much. There is not much to choose between the negative virtue of the present day and the positive wickedness of our forefathers." Mr. Johnson ventured the unavoidable reply that negative virtue was worse than positive wickedness, because it professed more. "That is true, but we must continue to be miserable sinners in some way or other, or else the Litany would have to be expunged, and that would offend the Conservatives," said Lady Joan, with a flippancy which was merely to hide the fact that she was feeling what women call overwrought; and she turned to Digby to conceal her consciousness of having been extravagant instead of witty. "Ah, Mr. Raleigh, how do you do? How good of you to come on such a short notice. You have seen Norah to-day, I think? Our new curate, Mr. Johnson. We were just longing for some music." Digby was again thankful for her _sang froid_. He touched her fingers, and bowed to the others, and he took his black coffee from the tray presented to him by the butler, and apologized in the most ordinary manner for not being in evening dress. "And may we have some music, please? Mr. Raleigh is a musician, you know, Mr. Johnson; perhaps you know his songs, though?" Mr. Johnson said he was passionately fond of music, and he knew Mr. Raleigh's name quite well, and had once sung a song of his called "Love's Sweet Illusions." "I have not written a song of that name; I never write ballads," said the musician, crushingly, as he opened the piano. "Something stormy, please," said Lady Joan, carelessly; "it is so hot that if you played anything sentimental I think it might affect even my unmusical nerves." "Something of your own," said Norah. They were the first words she had spoken, and the musician glanced nervously in her direction. He sat down and played the song he had just written, and hummed the words to show how it went. They were taken from the "Shaving of Shagpat," and the music was full of the reckless passion and meaning of the original. "Whether we die or we live, Matters it now no more; Life hath naught further to give; Love is its crown and its core; Come to us either, we're rife,-- Death or life!