"First he kissed me, then he left me; Bade me always answer 'no.'" She told the little boy, now looking up at her out of the one eye not covered by his hands, "Then the gentleman says to her," she made her voice loud and hearty and bluff, "Oh, Madam, in your face is beauty, On your lips red roses grow. Will you take me for your lover? Madam, answer 'yes' or 'no.'" She explained in an aside to Mark, "But her father had told her she must always answer just the one thing, 'no,' so she had to say," she turned up in the mincing, ladylike key again, and sang, "Oh no, John, no, John, no." Mark drew a long quivering breath through parted lips and sat silent, his one eye fixed on his mother, who now sang in the loud, lusty voice, "Oh, Madam, since you are so cruel, And that you do scorn me so, If I may not be your lover, Madam, will you let me go?" And in the high, prim voice, she answered herself, "Oh no, John, no, John, _no!_" A faint smile hovered near Mark's flushed face. He leaned towards his mother as she sang, and took down his hands so that he could see her better. Marise noted instantly, with a silent exclamation of relief that the red angry mark was quite outside the eye-socket, harmless on the bone at one side. Much ado about nothing as usual with the children. Why _did_ she get so frightened each time? Another one of Mark's hairbreadth escapes. She reached for the cold wet compress and went on, singing loudly and boldly, with a facetious wag of her head, (how tired she was of all this manoeuvering!), "Then I will stay with you forever If you will not be unkind." She applied the cold compress on the hurt spot and put out her hand for the bandage-roll, singing with an ostentatiously humorous accent and thinking with exasperation how all this was delaying her in the thousand things to do in the house, "Madam, I have vowed to love you; Would you have me change my mind?" She wound the bandage around and around the little boy's head, so that it held the compress in place, singing in the high, sweet voice, "Oh no, John, no, John, NO." She went on with a heavy, mock solemnity, in the loud voice, "Oh, hark, I hear the church-bells ringing; Will you come and be my wife?" She pinned the bandage in place at the back of Mark's head, "Or, dear Madam, have you settled To live single all your life?" She gathered the child up to her, his head on her shoulder, his face turned to her, his bare, dusty, wiry little legs wriggling and soiling her white skirt; and sang, rollickingly, "Oh no, John, no, John, NO!" "There, that's all," she said in her natural voice, looking down at Mark. She said to herself rebelliously, "I've expended enough personality and energy on this performance to play a Beethoven sonata at a concert," and found she was quoting something Vincent Marsh had said about her life, the day before.