e yo' at Oopthorne again."

He paused.

"'E's a woonderful maan, Dr. Rawcliffe."

"He is," said Alice.

Her voice was very soft, inaudible as a breath. All the blood in
her body seemed to rush into her face and flood it and spread up her
forehead to the roots of the gold hair that the east wind had crisped
round the edges of her hat. She thought, "It'll be awful if he
guesses, and if he talks." But when she looked at Greatorex his face
reassured her, it was so utterly innocent of divination. And the next
moment he went straight to the matter in hand.

"An' what's this thing you've coom to aassk me, Miss Cartaret?"

"Well"--she looked at him and her gray eyes were soft and charmingly
candid--"it _was_ if you'd be kind enough to sing at our concert.
You've heard about it?"

"Ay, I've heard about it, right enoof."

"Well--_won't_ you? You _have_ sung, you know."

"Yes. I've soong. But thot was in t' owd schoolmaaster's time. Yo'
wouldn't care to hear my singin' now. I've got out of the way of it,
like."

"You haven't, Mr. Greatorex. I've heard you. You've got a magnificent
voice. There isn't one like it in the choir."

"Ay, there's not mooch wrong with my voice, I rackon. But it's like
this, look yo. I joost soong fer t' schoolmaaster. He was a friend--a
personal friend of mine. And he's gone. And I'm sure I doan' knaw--"

"I know, Mr. Greatorex. I know exactly how you feel about it. You
sang to please your friend. He's gone and you don't like the idea of
singing for anybody else--for a set of people you don't know."

She had said it. It was the naked truth and he wasn't going to deny
it.

She went on. "We're strangers and perhaps you don't like us very much,
and you feel that singing for us would be like singing the Lord's song
in a strange country; you feel as if it would be profanation--a kind
of disloyalty."

"Thot's it. Thot's it." Never had he been so well interpreted.

"It's that--and it's because you miss him so awfully."

"Wall--" He seemed inclined, in sheer honesty, to deprecate the
extreme and passionate emotion she suggested. I would n' saay--O'
course, I sort o' miss him. I caann't afford to lose a friend--I
'aven't so many of 'em."

"I know. It's the waters of Babylon, and you're hanging up your
voice in the willow tree." She could be gay and fluent enough with
Greatorex, who was nothing to her. "But it's an awful pity. A willow
tree can't do anything with a big barytone voice hung up