"You talk in parables to-night, Charlie, and don't provide the key. Go and get some tea." He went himself toward the table and got a cup, but his eyes wandered round the room, and the old countess and Lady Wyndward noticed the searching glance. "Leycester," said his mother, "will you ask Lenore to sing for us?" He put down his cup and went down the room to where she was sitting beside the earl. "My mother has sent me as one of her ambassadors to the queen of music," he said. "Will your majesty deign to sing for us?" She looked up at him with a smile, then gave her cup to one of the maids, and put her hand upon his arm. "Do you know that this is the first time you have spoken to me since--since--I cannot remember?" "One does not dare intrude upon royalty too frequently; it would be presumptuous," he said. "In what am I royal?" she asked. "In your beauty!" he said, and he was the only man in the room who would have dared so pointed a reply. "Thanks," she said, with a calm smile; "you are very frank to-night." "Am I? And why not? We do not hesitate to call the summer sky blue or the ocean vast. There are some things so palpable and generally acknowledged that to be reserved about them would be absurd." "That will do," she said. "Since when have you learnt such eloquent phrases? What shall I sing, or shall I sing at all?" "To please me you have but to sing to please yourself!" he said. "Find me something then," she said, and sat down with her hands folded, looking a very queen indeed. He knelt down beside the canterbury, and, as at a signal, there was a general gathering round the piano, but she still sat calm and unconscious, very queen-like indeed. Leycester found a song, and set it up for her, opened the piano, took her bouquet from her lap, and waited for her gloves, the rest looking on as if interference were quite out of the question. Slowly she removed her gloves and gave them to him, touched the piano with her jeweled fingers, and began to sing. At this moment Stella, who had been wandering round the fernery, came back to the entrance, and stood listening and absorbed. She had never heard so beautiful a voice, not even in Italy. But presently, even while a thrill of admiration was running through her, she became conscious that there was something wanting. Her musical sense was unsatisfied. The notes were clear, bell-like, and as harmonious as a thrush's, the modulation perfect; but there was something wanting. Was it heart? From where she stood she could see the lovely face, with its dark violet eyes upturned, its eloquent mouth curved to allow the music vent, and the loveliness held her inthralled, though the voice did not move her. The song came to an end, and the singer sat with a calm smile receiving the murmurs of gratitude and appreciation, but she declined to sing again, and Stella saw Lord Leycester hand her her gloves and bouquet and stand ready to conduct her whither she would.