istible desire to open her mind and heart to a breath
of the higher life. Andrea listened to her and was conscious of a
pleasing sense of gratitude towards her. It seemed to him that in
speaking of these things in his presence, she offered him a kindly proof
of friendship, and permitted him to draw nearer to her. He thereby
caught a glimpse of her inner world, less through the actual words she
uttered than by the modulations of her voice. And again he recognised
the accents of _the other_.

It was an ambiguous voice, a voice with double chords in it, so to
speak. The more virile tones, deep and slightly veiled, would soften,
brighten, become feminine, as it were, by a transition so harmonious
that the ear of the listener was at once surprised, delighted, and
perplexed by it. The phenomenon was so singular that it sufficed by
itself to occupy the mind of the listener independently of the sense of
the words, so that after a few minutes the mind yielded to the
mysterious charm and remained suspended between expectation and desire
to hear the sweet cadence, as if waiting for a melody played upon an
instrument. It was the feminine note in this voice which recalled _the
other_.

'You sing?' asked Andrea half shyly.

'A little,' she replied.

'Then please sing a little,' entreated Donna Francesca.

'Very well, but I can only give you a sort of idea of the music, for,
during the last year, I have almost lost my voice.'

In the adjoining room, Don Manuel was silently playing cards with the
Marchese d'Ateleta. In the drawing-room the light of the lamps shone
softly red through a great Japanese shade. The sea-breeze, entering
through the pillars of the hall, shook the high Karamanieh curtains and
wafted the perfume of the garden on its wings. Beyond the pillars was a
vista of tall cypresses, massive and black as ebony against a diaphanous
sky throbbing with stars.

'As we are on the subject of old music,' said Donna Maria seating
herself at the piano, 'I will give you an air of Paisiello's out of
_Nina Pazza_, an exquisite thing.'

She accompanied herself as she sang. In the fervour of the song, the two
tones of her voice blended into one another like two precious metals
combining to make a single one--sonorous, warm, caressing, vibrating.
Paisiello's melody--simple, pure and spontaneous, full of delicious
languor and winged sadness, with a delicately light
accompaniment--issued from that plaintive mouth and rose with su