She sang by heart the little story drawn from the writing of Jalalu’d dinu’r Rumi. The poet who had taken it had made a charming poem of it, delicate, fragile, and yet dramatic and touched with fervour, porcelain with firelight gleaming on it here and there. Lady Holme had usually a power of identifying herself thoroughly with what she was singing, of concentrating herself with ease upon it, and so compelling her hearers to be concentrated upon her subject and upon her. To-day she was deeper down in words and music, in the little drama of them, than ever before. She was the man who knocked at the door, the loved one who cried from within the house. She gave the reply, “_C’est moi_!” with the eagerness of that most eager of all things--Hope. Then, as she sang gravely, with tender rebuke, “This house cannot shelter us both together,” she was in the heart of love, that place of understanding. Afterwards, as one carried by Fate through the sky, she was the man set down in a desert place, fasting, praying, educating himself to be more worthy of love. Then came the return, the question, “_Qui est la_?” the reply;--reply of the solitary place, the denied desire, the longing to mount, the educated heart--“_C’est toi_!” the swiftly-opening door, the rush of feet that were welcome, of outstretched arms for which waited a great possession. Something within her lived the song very fully and completely. For once she did not think at all of what effect she was making. She was not unconscious of the audience. She was acutely conscious of the presence of people, and of individuals whom she knew; of Fritz, of Lady Cardington, Sir Donald, even of poor, horrible Rupert Carey. But with the unusual consciousness was linked a strange indifference, a sense of complete detachment. And this enabled her to live simultaneously two lives--Lady Holme’s and another’s. Who was the other? She did not ask, but she felt as if in that moment a prisoner within her was released. And yet, directly the song was over and the eager applause broke out, a bitterness came into her heart. Her sense, banished for the moment, of her own personality and circumstances returned upon her, and that “_C’est toi_!” of the educated heart seemed suddenly an irony as she looked at Fritz’s face. Had any lover gone into the desert for her, fasted and prayed for her, learned for her sake the right answer to the ceaseless question that echoes in every woman’s heart? The pianist modulated, struck the chord of a new key, paused, then broke into a languid, honey-sweet prelude. Lady Holme sang the Italian song which had made Lady Cardington cry.