ughly and cordially at his ease with
her. They talked till the big drawing-room was full again, till Rosamund
reappeared in the midst of delightful friends; talked of Jimmy's future,
of the new tutor who must be found,--a real man, not a mere bloodless
intellectual,--and, again, of Constantinople, to which Mrs. Clarke would
return in April, against the advice of her friends, and in spite of Esme
Darlington's almost frantic protests, "because I love it, and because I
don't choose to be driven out of any place by liars." Her last remark to
him, and he thought it very characteristic of her, was this:

"Liberty's worth bitterness. I would buy it at the price of all the
tears in my body."

It was, perhaps, also very characteristic that she made the statement
with a perfectly quiet gravity which almost concealed the evidently
tough inflexibility beneath.

And then, when people were ready to go, Rosamund sung Brahm's
"Wiegenlied."

Dion stood beside Bruce Evelin while Rosamund was singing this. She sang
it with a new and wonderful tenderness which had come to her with Robin,
and in her face, as she sang, there was a new and wonderful tenderness.
The meaning of Robin in Rosamund's life was expressed to Dion by
Rosamund in this song as it had never been expressed before. Perhaps
it was expressed also to Bruce Evelin, for Dion saw tears in his eyes
almost brimming over, and his face was contracted, as if only by a
strong, even a violent, effort he was able to preserve his self-control.

As people began to go away Dion found himself close to Esme Darlington.

"My dear fellow," said Mr. Darlington, with unusual abandon, "Rosamund
has made a really marvelous advance--marvelous. In that 'Wiegenlied' she
reached high-water mark. No one could have sung it more perfectly. What
has happened to her?"

"Robin," said Dion, looking him full in the face, and speaking with
almost stern conviction.

"Robin?" said Mr. Darlington, with lifted eyebrows.

Then people intervened.

In the carriage going home Rosamund was very happy. She confessed to the
pleasure her success had given her.

"I quite loved singing to-night," she said. "That song about Greece was
for you."

"I know, and the 'Wiegenlied' was for Robin."

"Yes," she said.

She was silent; then her voice came out of the darkness:

"For Robin, but he didn't know it."

"Some day he will know it."

Not a word was said about Mrs. Clarke that night.

On the following day