"I am very far from perfect in my music, or anything else, perhaps," she said. "Do not say so," I whispered; "yet had you been more perfect than you are, I think no other woman in this world would have had the chance of a lover." "How--why?" "All men would be loving you, and you only." "This is more like the inflated flattery of a Frenchman than the speech of a sober Briton," said Valerie, a little disdainfully. "Does it displease you?" "Yes, certainly." "Why?" "People don't love when they flatter," was the pretty pointed and coquettish response, and preluded an air with a crash on the keys, thus interrupting something I was about to say--heaven only knows what--a formal declaration, I fear. "You admired my opal. Listen to the story of its _origin_; I doubt if the story of your ring is half so pretty," said she. And then she sang in English the following song, which she had been taught by her governess, a song the author of which I have never been able to discover; but then and there, situated as I was, the English words came deliciously home to my heart, and I quote them now from memory:-- "A dew-drop came, with a spark of flame It had caught from the sun's last ray, To a violet's breast, where it lay at rest, Till the hours brought back the day. With a blush and a frown a rose look'd down, But smiled at once to view, With its colouring warm, her own bright form Reflected back by the dew! Then a stolen look the stranger took At the sky so soft and blue, And a leaflet green, with its silvery sheen, Was seen by the idler, too. As he thus reclined, a cold north wind Of a sudden blew around, And a maiden fair, who was walking there, Next morning _an opal_ found!" I ventured to pat her shoulder approvingly. I glanced furtively round; the Tolstoff had gone out of the room, and somehow my arm slipped round Valerie, who looked up at me, smiling archly, yet she said, firmly, "Pray don't." "How much longer am I to keep this silence?" I asked. "How--what silence?" "To be thus in suspense, Valerie," I added, lowering my voice and bending my face towards her ear. Her smile passed away, her white lids drooped, and perplexity and trouble stole over her eyes, as she drew her head back. "I do not know what you mean, or whither your conversation tends," she said. "You know that I love you!" "No, I don't." "You must have seen it--must have guessed it--since the happy hour in which I first saw you." "Do not speak to me thus, I implore you," said she, colouring deeply, and covering her face with her beautiful hands. "Why, Valerie, dearest, dearest Valerie?" "I must not--dare not listen to you." "Dare not?" "I speak the truth," said she, and her breast heaved. "Will you marry me, Valerie?" "I cannot marry you." "Why?"