He encountered this difficulty in special force one evening about a month after the studio luncheon. The girls had spent the afternoon together, and, dinner being over, Lisbeth was singing one of Georgie’s favorite songs. It was a love song, too, for though Miss Georgie had as yet had no practical experience in the matter of love, she had some very pretty ideas of that tender passion, and was very fond of love songs, and poems, and love stories, such as touched her heart, and caused her to shed a few gentle tears. And this song was a very pretty one, indeed. “All for love, and the world well lost,” was the burden of its guileless refrain. All for love, love which is always true, and always tender, and never deceives us. What is the world, it demanded, what is life, what rest can we find if we have not love? The world is our garden, and love is the queen of roses, its fairest bloom. Let us gather what flowers we may, but, oh, let us gather the rose first, and tend it most delicately. It will give its higher beauty to our lives; it will make us more fit for heaven itself; it will shame our selfishness, and help us to forget our sordid longings. All for love, and the world well lost. And so on, through three or four verses, with a very sweet accompaniment, which Georgie played with great taste. And Lisbeth was singing, and, as she had a trick of doing, was quite forgetting herself. And her exquisite, full-toned voice rose and fell with a wondrous fervor, and her immense dark eyes glared, and her small pale face glowed, and a little pathetic shadow seemed to rest upon her. So well did she sing, indeed, that one might have fancied that she had done nothing, all her life, but sing just such sweetly sentimental songs, and believe every word of them implicitly; and when she had finished, Georgie’s eyes were full of tears. “Oh, Lisbeth!” she cried, looking up at her affectionately, “you make everything sound so beautiful and--and true. I could never, never sing in that way. It must be because you can feel beautiful, tender things so deeply, so much more deeply than other people do.” Lisbeth awoke from her dream suddenly. Hector Anstruthers, who had been standing at the other side of the piano, looked at her with a significance which would have roused her at any time. Their eyes met, and both pair flashed; his with the very intensity of contempt; hers with defiance. “My dear Georgie,” he said, “I admire your enthusiasm, but scarcely think you quite understand Miss Crespigny. She is one of those fortunate people who cannot help doing things well. It is a habit she has acquired. No sentiment would suffer in her hands, even a sentiment quite opposite to the one she has just illustrated the force of so artistically.” Georgie looked a little amazed. She did not liked to be chilled when all her gentle emotions were in full play; and, apart from this, did not such a speech sound as if it suggested a doubt of the sincerity of her beloved Lisbeth?