. Her singing proved
it, for she chose a couple of light-hearted French ballads, and sang
them with a dainty humour which matched the daintiness of the words and
music. Her shrugs and pouts, the pretty arching of her eyebrows, the
whimsical note of mockery in her voice, represented her to Drake under a
new aspect, helped to complete her in his thoughts much as her voice,
very sweet and clear for all its small compass, completed in some queer
way the flowers and sunshine. Her manner, however, did more than that;
it gave to him, conscious of a certain stiffness and inflexibility of
temperament, an inner sense of completion anticipated from his hope of a
time when their lives would join. He leaned forward in his chair,
watching the play of her face, the lights and shadows in the curls of
her hair, the nimble touch of her fingers on the keys. Clarice stopped
suddenly. 'You don't sing?'

'I have no accomplishments at all.'

She laughed and began to play one of Chopin's nocturnes. Her fingers
rattled against the ivory on a run up the piano. She stopped and took a
ring from her right hand; Drake noticed that it was the emerald ring
which he had seen winking in the firelight on that evening when she had
covered her face from him. She dropped the ring on the top of the piano
at Drake's side. It spun round once or twice, and then settled down with
a little tinkling whirr upon the rim of its hoop Drake fancied that the
removal of this particular ring was in some inexplicable way of hopeful
augury to him.

Clarice resumed her playing, but as she neared the end of the nocturne,
Drake perceived that there was a growing change, a declension, in her
style. She seemed to lose the spirit of the nocturne and even her command
on the instrument; the firm touch faltered into indecision, from
indecision to absolute unsteadiness; the notes, before clear and
distinct, now slurred into one another with a tremulous wavering.

'You are fond of music?' she asked at length, with something of an
effort.

'Very,' he replied, 'though it puzzles me. It's like opening a book
written in a language you don't understand. You get a glimpse of a
meaning here and there, but no meaning really. I can't explain what I
feel,' he added, with a laugh. 'I want Mallinson to help me.'

'You admire Mr. Mallinson?' asked Clarice, stopping suddenly.

'Well, one always admires the class of work one can't do oneself, eh?'

'That's very generous of you.'

'Why gen