Mrs. Amberley and Mrs. Toftrees were sitting close together and carrying on a vigorous, whispered conversation, despite the music. Mr. Amberley was by himself in a big arm-chair near the piano, and Lothian sat upon a settee of blue linen with Rita Wallace. As he sank into a chair Toftrees glanced at Lothian. The poet's face was unpleasant. When he had been talking to Amberley it had lighted up and had more than a hint of fineness. Now it was heavy again, veiled and coarsened. Lothian's head was nodding in time to the music. One well-shaped but rather red hand moved restlessly upon his knee. The man was struggling--Toftrees was certain of it--to appear as if the music was giving him intense pleasure. He was thinking about himself and how he looked to the other people in the room. Drip, drip, drip!--it was the sad, graceful prelude in which the fall of rain is supposed to be suggested, the hot steady rain of the Mediterranean which had fallen at Majorca ever so many years ago and was falling now in sound, though he that caught its beauty was long since dust. Drip, drip!--and then the soft repetition which announced that the delicate and lovely vision had reached its close, that the august grey harmonies were over. For a moment, there was silence in the drawing room. Muriel's white fingers rested on the keys of the piano, the candles threw their light upwards upon the enigmatic maiden face. Her father sighed quietly--happily also as he looked at her--and the low buzz of Mrs. Amberley's and Mrs. Toftrees' talk became much more distinct. Suddenly Gilbert Lothian jumped up from the settee. He hurried to the piano, his face flushed, his eyes liquid and bright. It was consciously and theatrically done, an exaggeration of his bow in the dining room--not the right thing in the very least! "Oh, thank you! _Thank you!_" he said in a high, fervent voice. "How wonderful that is! And you played it as Crouchmann plays it--the _only_ interpretation! I know him quite well. We had supper together the other night after his concert, and he told me--no, that won't interest you. I'll tell you another time, remind me! Now, _do_ play something else!" He fumbled with the music upon the piano with tremulous and unsteady hands. "Ah! here we are!" he cried, and there was an insistent note of familiarity in his voice. "The book of Valses! You know the twelfth of course? Tempo giusto! It goes like this . . ." He began to hum, quite musically, and to wave his hands. Muriel Amberley glanced quickly at her father and there was distress in her eyes. Amberley was standing by the piano in a moment. He seemed very much master of himself, serene and dominant, by the side of Gilbert Lothian. His face was coldly civil and there was disgust in his eyes. "I don't think my daughter will play any more, Mr. Lothian," he said. An ugly look flashed out upon the poet's face, suspicion and realisation showed there for a second and passed.