She could hear his voice talking with Lyddon, and caught the whiff of his cigarette as he passed under her window. She must be on her guard against Isabey. When away from him she must not think of him, and when with him she must not even look at him. How new and peculiar it was that she should be on her guard against any man in the world! A little after five o’clock she went downstairs. For the last half hour Adrienne had been playing soft chords upon the piano in the drawing-room. Angela went into the room and said as she always did when Adrienne went to the piano: “Pray keep on playing. I do so love to hear you play.” And then, whether by a coincidence or not, Isabey entered the room. Adrienne played some of the sweet, mysterious music of Chopin, and Angela listened with delight. So did Isabey, but Adrienne was conscious that the music laid no spell upon him. There was a large, round mirror over the piano and in it she could clearly see Isabey’s eyes fixed on Angela. Upon the music rack were some duets, and Adrienne, turning them over, hummed little bits of them, but Isabey made no offer to sing them with her, and when she spoke of singing as an art Isabey said coolly: “The fact is, I have always been ashamed of my singing. It sounds as if I had given much more study to it than I really gave.” “You promised,” said Angela, turning her clear gaze upon him, “that some time you would tell me how you came to sing so well.” “The truth is,” he replied, laughing, “I had Mario for a teacher. I lived one summer in a villa on Lake Constance, next one where Mario lived. He took an interest in me and insisted on teaching me singing. I was a youngster then, and Mario was really a delightful old fellow. Lord Chesterfield says that no gentleman should ever pursue any art so far as to be mistaken for a professional, and it is a wise observation, because, if a man does that, he usually unfits himself for anything else. I did not, however, get so far as that. Mario, meaning to do me the greatest kindness in the world, wrote a letter to my old father in New Orleans, saying that if I would study singing seriously I might, in a year or two, be second tenor at the Paris Opera. You should have read my father’s letter in reply.” “I read it,” said Adrienne, laughing. “The old gentleman, when he was violently angry, wrote in English, in which he was not very proficient. He wrote me: ‘You do come home immediately at once, now, at present. You shall disgrace yourself by singing in the opera. Come home, I threaten.’ I came home by the next steamer. For a long time my father would not listen to me sing and swore every time music was mentioned. Then, one day, when he was asleep in his chair, I went to the piano and began to sing a song his mother had sung to him long years before in France. When I turned round, after the song was finished, he was weeping. After that he sometimes listened to me sing.” While they were speaking Lyddon had strolled in.