eux. It was the
simplest one imaginable; but as graver embassadors have done before him,
liking his quarters he dallied over his mission. (If Geneva, instead of
Paris, were chosen for the meeting of a Congress, would not several
knotty points be decided much more speedily?) When, at last, all was
settled, it seemed very natural that he should petition Cecil for "just
one song;" and you know what that always comes to. Royston never would
"turn over" if he could possibly avoid it; he considered it a willful
waste of advantages, for the strain on his attention, slight as it might
be, quite spoiled his appreciation of the melody. Perhaps he was right.
As a rule, if one wanted to discover the one person about whose approval
the fair _cantatrice_ is most solicitous, it would be well to look _not_
immediately behind her ivory shoulder. At all events, he had made his
peace with Miss Tresilyan on this point long ago. So he drew his
arm-chair up near the piano, but out of her sight as she sang, and sat
watching her intently through his half-closed eyelids.

I marvel not that in so many legends of witchery and seduction since the
_Odyssey_ the [Greek: _thespesie aoide_] has borne its part. "But," the
Wanderer might say, replying against Circe's warning, "have we not
learned prudence and self-command from Athene, the chaste Tritonid? Have
not ten years under shield before Troy, and a thousand leagues of
seafaring, made our hearts as hard as our hands, and our ears deaf to
the charms of song? Thus much of wisdom, at least, hath come with
grizzled hair, that we may mock at temptations that might have won us
when our cheeks were in their down. O most divinely fair of goddesses!
have we not resisted your own enchantments? Shall we go forth scathless
from AEaea to perish on the Isle of the Sirens?" But the low, green hills
are already on the weather beam, and we are aware of a sweet weird chant
that steals over the water like a living thing, and smooths the ripple
where it passes. How fares it with our philosophic Laertiades? Those
signs look strangely unlike incitements to greater speed; and what mean
those struggles to get loose? Well, perhaps, for the hero that the good
hemp holds firm, and that Peribates and Eurylochus spring up to
strengthen his bonds; well, that the wax seals fast the ears of those
sturdy old sea-dogs who stretch to their oars till Ocean grows hoary
behind the blades; or nobler bones might soon be added to the myri