In the flowered drawing-room, the tall woman with the proud nose and the secret mouth was embroidering upon catgut-gauze with a needle tiny as a fairy's spear and the grey-eyed girl who was not like Nausicaa was seated at the forte-piano, playing. She broke off as they came in. "I beg you will not cease your playing, Miss Gentian," said Andrew, awkwardly, "I am devoted to the forte-piano," he added, feeling the words were foolish as soon as they were out of his mouth. "Then I shan't dare continue," said the girl carelessly. "My strumming must sound like a rigadoon on a milkpan to the ears of such a connoisseur--from New York--" "Miss Gentian--I implore you," said Andrew, embarrassed. "Oh, if you'll promise me no criticism, I'll play, sir--or sing perhaps--'tis too hot for playing alone--the piano sounds like a locust in August--heat--heat--heat--" she drummed it out on the keys, impatiently, "But sing, sing, what shall I sing? Shall it be Charley over the Water, father, to remind you of the Forty-Five--or let me see--'Bobby Shaftoe,' for Mr. Beard--'Bobby Shaftoe's come from sea--Silver buckles on his--shoon--" she hummed with gipsy impertinence and Andrew winced as he saw her eyes fixed mockingly on his shoe-buckles--"Come, fine ladies and gentlemen--what d'ye lack--lack--" "Sing 'Beauty Retire,' daughter," said her father quietly. His eyes were intent upon hers and it seemed to Andrew as if he were witnessing some obscure and inaudible struggle of wills between them--a struggle watched by the tall woman in the chair with great weariness of mind. "That old thing? Oh, very well--I'm a dutiful daughter. You'll pardon our rusticity Mr. Beard--we have none of your New York novelties here in songs or ladies--" She struck a chord on the forte-piano as if she hated it, and began to sing. "Beauty retire--retire--" she sang, "Retire--retire, thou dost my pity move Believe my pity and then trust my love--" Her voice was extraordinarily pure and moving. Andrew, listening, thought of skeins of rock-crystal, flecked through and through with tiny flakes of the softest gold--of a golden box where a crystal bird beat and beat its wings in trammelled, scornful delight. Her face had turned grave as she sang, and a little drowsy, as if some excess of vitality came to her through the act of singing and suffused the veins of her heart with a sleepy power. She was like a child now, Andrew thought--a beautiful, daunting child--