But the excited woman refused to hear or to heed this provision. He wished Sundran in--India within the next half hour; for Nouna, in whose mind the consciousness that by marrying she had done something irrevocable, not yet fully understood, was just waking a childish dread which made her cling to the old, well-known face with a new tenacity, insisted on retaining the Indian up stairs, and asked her all sorts of affectionate questions concerning “Mammy Ellis,” who, she learned, had been in a great fright about her, but had been comforted by a letter from the Countess, who, she said, had treated her very handsomely. Nouna, whose smiles had been on the borders of tears all day, cried a little at this mention of her mother, and on looking up again after drying her eyes found that Sundran, whether or not acting on a mute suggestion from George, had discreetly retired. Her tears ceased instantly, like those of a naughty little nursery tyrant when “papa” comes in; and George, respecting this sudden shyness of a girl whose heart he knew he had scarcely as yet half conquered, went straight to the piano, opened it, and began to sing snatches of love-songs to a very fair improvised accompaniment by way of paying his court to her in a less obtrusive manner. The device succeeded admirably. George was by no means a great singer. A respectable baritone voice in a perfect state of non-cultivation is a very common gift among young men; but there was enough passion and poetry awake in his heart to-night for a suggestion of something more interesting than the straightforward bawling of the ordinary singing Englishman to find its way to his lips and vibrate in the notes of “Lady, wake, bright stars are beaming.” It is needless to say that his ears were well open to every sound behind him, and that he felt all the significance of the soft creaking of the casters as Nouna drew her arm-chair, little by little, close up to him, until at last she leaned on the end of the piano by the bass notes and watched his face with a furtive wide-eyed scrutiny which he was careful not to divert by appearing to notice its intensity. Unable to keep his eyes off her face altogether, he took care that the yearning, passionate glances he cast at her should be so rapid as to leave on her mind the impression that they were a result of the intoxication produced by his own song, instead of the song being the result of the intoxication produced by the glances. He saw that she was in a more deeply thoughtful mood than he had yet seen her in during their short acquaintance; and he wanted her to give spontaneous speech to her thoughts, and thus to gain an insight into that mysterious recess of which he knew so little--her mind. At last, when he had come to the last note of the “Ständchen” out of Schubert’s _Winterreise_, which he sang with more passion, if with less sentiment than an artist would have thrown into the beautiful melody, he turned to her and attempted to embrace her. But