'Well, I've been in England some years now,' he said, with a rather sad smile, which confirmed Clare in that fancy about his history. 'A turn for languages is like the taste for tea, one of our national characteristics. I suppose the ordinary tongue finds such a difficulty in twisting itself round Russian, that if it can do that it can do anything. Allow me!' springing forward to hand Mr Stanley his cup of coffee. 'My daughter always sings to me while I'm having my coffee,' said Mr Stanley, suppressing the fact that under these circumstances he generally went to sleep, and feeling a mistaken confidence, as slaves of habit always do, that his ordinary custom could be set at nought on the present occasion. 'I hope Miss Stanley will not deny me the privilege of sharing your pleasure,' said Litvinoff, rising and making for the piano. Clare followed him. 'What shall I sing, papa?' she said. 'Whatever you like, my dear. "The Ash Grove."' Clare sang it. Her voice was not particularly powerful, but she made the most of it, such as it was, and sang with enough expression to make it pleasant to listen to her. After 'The Ash Grove' came one or two plaintive Scotch airs, and before she was well through 'Bonnie Doon,' the accompaniment of her father's heavy breathing made her aware that her audience was reduced by one-half. The most appreciative half remained, and, when the last notes of the regretful melody had died out, preferred a request for Schubert's 'Wanderer.' This happened to be her favourite song, and she sang it _con amore_. 'It always seems to me,' he said when she had finished, 'that that music carries in it all the longing that makes the hearts of exiles heavy.' Clare looked up at him brightly. 'Oh, but their hearts ought not to be heavy, you know,' she said. 'The Revolution is of no country--I thought banishment from one country ought merely to mean work in another for an exile for freedom. Surely there is a fight to be fought here in England, for instance, too. I don't know much about it; I've scarcely seen anything, but it seems to me there is much to be put straight here--many wrongs to be redressed, much misery to be swept away.' The Count's bold eyes fixed themselves on her with a new interest in them. 'Yes, yes,' he returned with a little backward wave of his hand. 'Exiles here do what they can, I think; but the wronged and miserable will not have long to wait, if there are many Miss Stanleys to champion their cause. Still it does make one's heart heavy to know that horrors unspeakable, worse than anything here, take place daily in one's own country, which one is powerless to prevent. One feels helpless, shut out. Ah, heaven! death itself is less hard to bear.' 'You speak as if you had felt it all yourself,' said Clare, a little surprised at the earnestness of his tone.