"I d-d-d-o s-s-s-s-s----" he answered. As he stood there hissing, the truth flashed upon me at last. I had heard that the most dreadful stammerers enunciate as easily as anybody else when they sing, because the measured swing of the time keeps them steady. My heart sank as I thought of the Voice so mutilated! Poor young peer! Was this to be the end of all my beautiful visions? As cheerfully as I could I cut short his sibilations. "Oh, that's all right, then," I said. "Then I may put you down for a couple of items." He shook his head, and held up his hands deprecatingly. "Anything but that!" he stammered; "Make me a patron, a committee-man, anything! I do not sing in public." While he was saying this I thought long and deeply. The affliction was after all less terrible than I had a right to expect, and I knew from the advertisement columns that it was easily curable. Demosthenes, I remembered, had stoned it to death. I felt my love reviving, as I looked into his troubled face, instinct with the double aristocracy of rank and genius. At the worst the singing Voice was unaffected by the disability, and as for the conversational, well there was consolation in the prospect of having the last word while one's husband was still having the first. _En attendant_, I could have wished him to sing his replies instead of speaking them, for not only should I thus enjoy his Voice but the interchange of ideas would proceed less tardily. However that would have made him into an operatic personage, and I did not want him to look so ridiculous as all that. It would be tedious to recount our interview at the length it extended to. Suffice it to say that I gained my point. Without letting out that I knew of his theories of art for art's sake, I yet artfully pleaded that whatever one's views, charity alters cases, inverts everything, justifies anything. "For instance," I said with charming _naïveté_, "I would not have dared to call on you but in its sacred name." He agreed to sing two songs--nay, two of his own songs. I was to write to him particulars of time and place. He saw me to the door. I held out my hand and he took it, and we looked at each other, smiling brightly. "B-but I d-d-d-don't know your n-n-name," he said suddenly. "P-p-p-rincess what?" He spoke more fluently, now he had regained his composure. "Princess," I answered, my eyes gleaming merrily. "That is all. The Honorable Miss Primpole will give me a character, if you require one." He laughed--his laugh was like the Voice--and followed me with his eyes as I glided away.