Lady Holme looked at her and at the desert song. Suddenly she thought she would not sing it to Lady Cardington. There was too wild a spell in it for this auditor. She played a little prelude and sang an Italian song, full, as a warm flower of sweetness, of the sweetness of love. The refrain was soft as golden honey, soft and languorous, strangely sweet and sad. There was an exquisite music in the words of the refrain, and the music they were set to made their appeal more clinging, like the appeal of white arms, of red, parting lips. “Torna in fior di giovinezza Isaotta Blanzesmano, Dice: Tutto al mondo e vano: Nell’amore ogni dolcezza.” Tears came into Lady Cardington’s eyes as she listened, brimmed over and fell down upon her blanched cheeks. Each time the refrain recurred she moved her lips: “Dice: Tutto al mondo e vano: Nell’amore ogni dolcezza.” Lady Holme’s voice was like honey as she sang, and tears were in her eyes too. Each time the refrain fell from her heart she seemed to see another world, empty of gossamer threads, a world of spread wings, a world of--but such poetry and music do not tell you! Nor can you imagine. You can only dream and wonder, as when you look at the horizon line and pray for the things beyond. “Tutto--tutto al mondo a vano: Nell’amore ogni dolcezza.” “Why do you sing like that to-day?” said Lady Cardington, wiping her eyes gently. “I feel like that to-day,” Lady Holme said, keeping her hands on the keys in the last chord. There was a vagueness in her eyes, a sort of faint cloud of fear. While she was singing she had thought, “Have I known the love that shows the vanity of the world? Have I known the love in which alone all sweetness lives?” The thought had come in like a firefly through an open window. “Have I? Have I?” And something within her felt a stab of pain, something within her soul and yet surely a thousand miles away. “Tutto--tutto al mondo e vano,” murmured Lady Cardington. “We feel that and we feel it, and--do you?” “To-day I seem to,” answered Lady Holme. “When you sing that song you look like the love that gives all sweetness to men. Sing like that, look like that, and you--If Sir Donald had heard you!” Lady Holme got up from the piano. “Sir Donald!” she said. She came to sit down near Lady Cardington. “Sir Donald! Why do you say that?” And she searched Lady Cardington’s eyes with eyes full of inquiry. Lady Cardington looked away. The wistful power that generally seemed a part of her personality had surely died out in her. There was something nervous in her expression, deprecating in her attitude. “Why do you speak about Sir Donald?” Lady Holme said. “Don’t you know?” Lady Cardington looked up. There was an extraordinary sadness in her eyes, mingled with a faint defiance. “Know what?” “That Sir Donald is madly in love with you?” “Sir Donald! Sir Donald--madly anything!”