“It is so, without question,” said the marquise, nodding her head delightedly. “Nevertheless,” said Tiretta, “I hold by my title. It hath the warrant of the noblest gentleman ever born of imagination or fact. And so I do not use it in irony or self-depreciation, but as a title to be defended like a king’s.” “Eh bien!” said madam indulgently; “let it remain, then, as a question of terms. Be to yourself what you will; to us you shall be the knight-errant. Eh, Isabelita?” “Pray do not ask me, madam,” responded the girl coldly. “I am not a judge of what constitutes a knight-errant.” She quite foresaw the angry protest her tone would evoke; and yet she would affect no other. Everything this man said offended her. She saw only design and insincerity behind it. This mission he was engaged to fulfil must always be paramount in his mind, and her consciousness of that preoccupation made her suspicious of his every sentiment. She thought it a pity that one so recommended by his looks and soldierly reputation should condescend to lend himself to such finical, rather contemptible practices. But no doubt he had been demoralised by flattery. There was nothing in the world like a fine voice to convert a man into an insufferable coxcomb. The insolence of the light laugh with which he received her snub spoke a whole volume for his impregnable self-complacency. It brought a flush to her cheeks. But the laugh had in reality spoken no more than a tickle of that humour which accepts its own failures whimsically. “Stuff and nonsense!” cried the marquise. “You were ready enough with your definitions when you wanted to contradict monsieur. But one can no more produce reason from temper than grapes from a thistle or music from that tree.” “Cannot one?” said Tiretta, hastily interposing with a droll look. “Ah, but I do not feel so sure!” There was a knot of frayed bullion hanging from his sword hilt, and, picking delicately, he unwound from it a single strand of gold wire a yard or so in length. This, after testing, he carried to a branch that overhung the walk, and, fitting it taut within a natural bow made by the wood, contrived a tonic resonant string, which, daintily touched, answered to his manipulation like that of a fairy guitar. “Now,” he said, his head bent to the string and his fingers lightly caressing it? “shall we see if the little tree will sing to us?” “Yes, yes!” cried the children breathlessly. “You must be very quiet,” he said. “It will speak, if it speaks at all, so soft and shy that a sound would frighten it.” They sat as dumb as mice--as dumb as the hot motionless air about them. And presently his fingers moved--the merest phantom of music; and in the low phantom of a voice he took up their tale: “What music in the little tree? The wind, the bird, the humming-bee. They yield their secrets up, and sing With tirra-lirra down my string.