It was a very insincere sigh! for, to begin with, I loathe any form of card-playing myself; _I_ don’t believe the story that cards were invented to please a mad king. I believe he was _driven_ mad by the card-games of the period! Secondly, I wasn’t one bit bored. I was revelling in the spectacle of this wretched young man—imagine being able to employ such a phrase to the Grand Panjandrum himself!—this _wretched_ young man looking so acutely uncomfortable and at such a loss. Gleefully I allowed yet another long and awkward pause to take place. Then, I put my hand—the left one—up to my mouth as if to stifle a yawn. Then I glanced at the ship in full sail that rocked to and fro on the face of the grandfather’s clock, and murmured resignedly: “Only twenty minutes past nine?” “I am afraid that clock is always kept ten minutes fast,” said my host. I sighed again, more deeply. Then I allowed my eyes to wander, as if vainly seeking the way of escape!—round the comfortable, masculine-looking room. Actually, my glance was caught by an odd-looking arrangement of wires across the ceiling. “Oh, what are those for?” I asked. “Telegraphy?” “No; I had those put there to improve the acoustics of this room. It was otherwise so bad to play and sing in.” “Oh!” I said, and wondering why Blanche didn’t use the drawing-room to sing in, I glanced at the somber shape of the piano at the other end of the den. “I wonder if you would allow me to practise in here sometimes—of course, only in the mornings?” I requested meekly. “When I go back to London, I shall want to see about a situation as music-teacher or something of that kind. I must have some definite work to do—besides yours, I mean!—and I ought to furbish up my playing.” “Ah, you play, do you?” said Mr. Waters, in a tone of the deepest relief. “Good!” He got up, switched on some more lights, and opened the piano. “I wonder if you have a rarer accomplishment still. Can you accompany?” “I should be able to,” said I, with a little bitter smile to myself. For I’ve certainly spent hours enough at the piano with Sydney Vandeleur, practising or transposing his lyrics. He has a gift for pretty, tender melody-writing; he “sets” all his favourite verses.... “Will you try over a song with me, then?” (What! It was _he_ who sang?) “Certainly!” This was not my subdued, Leadenhall Street office “Certainly.” It was the way in which I might have spoken to Sydney, or to Major Montresor, or the Somervilles, or any of the men who came to my father’s house in the old days, and for whom I played in the evening. “Wait a minute. This gets in the way; clicks on the keys,” said I, glancing at those weighty diamonds that blazed on my finger. And I drew off his ring, pushing it with a careless little flick out of my way on the glassy black top of the piano. He had put up before me Schubert’s “_Still wie die Nacht_.” Appropriate enough, for Still Waters! “Still as the night, deep as the sea——”