Pretty Beatrix was singing now to her own accompaniment; and Captain Drayton, twisting the end of his light moustache, stood haughtily by her side. The music in his ear was but a half-heard noise. Indeed, although he had sat out operas innumerable, like other young gentlemen, who would sit out as many hours of a knife-grinder's performance, or of a railway whistle, if it were the fashion, had but an imperfect recollection of the airs he had paid so handsomely to hear, and was no authority on music of any sort. Now Beatrix was pretty--more than pretty. Some people called her lovely. She sang in that rich and plaintive contralto--so rare and so inexplicably moving--the famous "Come Gentil," from Don Pasquale. When she ceased, the gentleman at her other side, Guy Strangways, sighed--not a complimentary--a real sigh. "That is a wonderful song, the very spirit of a serenade. Such distance--such gaiety--such sadness. Your Irish poet, Thomas Moore, compares some spiritual music or kind voice to sunshine spoken. This is _moonlight_--moonlight _sung_, and _so_ sung that I could dream away half a life in listening, and yet sigh when it ceases." Mr. Guy Strangway's strange, dark eyes looked full on her, as with an admiring enthusiasm he said these words. The young lady smiled, looking up for a moment from the music-stool, and then with lowered eyes again, and that smile of gratification which is so beautiful in a lovely girl's face. "It is quite charming, really. I'm no musician, you know; but I enjoy good music extravagantly, especially singing," said Captain Drayton. "I don't aspire to talk sentiment and that kind of poetry." He was, perhaps, near using a stronger term--"a mere John Bull; but it _is_, honestly, charming." He had his glass in his eye, and turned back the leaf of the song to the title-page. "Don Pasquale--yes. Sweet opera that. How often I have listened to Mario in it! But never, Miss Marlowe, with more real pleasure than to the charming performance I have just heard." Captain Drayton was not making his compliment well, and felt it somehow. It was clumsy--it was dull--it was meant to override the tribute offered by Guy Strangways, whose presence he chose, in modern phrase, to ignore; and yet he felt that he had, as he would have expressed it, rather "put his foot in it;" and, with just a little flush in his cheek and rather angry eyes, he stooped over the piano and read the Italian words half aloud. "By-the-bye," he said, suddenly recollecting a topic, "what a sweet scene that is of Gryston Bridge? Have you ever been to see it before?" "Once since we came, we rode there, papa and I," answered Miss Marlowe. "It looked particularly well this evening--quite beautiful in the moonlight." "Is it possible, Miss Marlowe, that _you_ were there this evening? I and my uncle stopped on our way here to admire the exquisite effect of the steep old bridge, with a wonderful foreground of Druidic monuments, as they seemed to me."