lay the flute--no more."

"Ah, yes--but then you play it as an artist, not as an accomplishment."

"But how do you know?" laughed Aaron.

"I was told so--and I believe it."

"That's nice of you, anyhow--But you are a musician too."

"Yes--we are both musicians--my wife and I."

Manfredi looked at his wife. She flicked the ash off her cigarette.

"What sort?" said Aaron.

"Why, how do you mean, what sort? We are dilettanti, I suppose."

"No--what is your instrument? The piano?"

"Yes--the pianoforte. And my wife sings. But we are very much out of
practice. I have been at the war four years, and we have had our home
in Paris. My wife was in Paris, she did not wish to stay in Italy alone.
And so--you see--everything goes--"

"But you will begin again?"

"Yes. We have begun already. We have music on Saturday mornings. Next
Saturday a string quartette, and violin solos by a young Florentine
woman--a friend--very good indeed, daughter of our Professor Tortoli,
who composes--as you may know--"

"Yes," said Aaron.

"Would you care to come and hear--?"

"Awfully nice if you would--" suddenly said the wife, quite simply, as
if she had merely been tired, and not talking before.

"I should like to very much--"

"Do come then."

While they were making the arrangements, Algy came up in his blandest
manner.

"Now Marchesa--might we hope for a song?"

"No--I don't sing any more," came the slow, contralto reply.

"Oh, but you can't mean you say that deliberately--"

"Yes, quite deliberately--" She threw away her cigarette and opened her
little gold case to take another.

"But what can have brought you to such a disastrous decision?"

"I can't say," she replied, with a little laugh. "The war, probably."

"Oh, but don't let the war deprive us of this, as of everything else."

"Can't be helped," she said. "I have no choice in the matter. The bird
has flown--" She spoke with a certain heavy languor.

"You mean the bird of your voice? Oh, but that is quite impossible. One
can hear it calling out of the leaves every time you speak."

"I'm afraid you can't get him to do any more than call out of the
leaves."

"But--but--pardon me--is it because you don't intend there should be any
more song? Is that your intention?"

"That I couldn't say," said the Marchesa, smoking, smoking.

"Yes," said Manfredi. "At the present time it is because she WILL
not--not because she cannot. It is her will, as you say."

"De