--no, you must not.'

That evening, while I was playing the overture to Cenerentola, for the
entertainment of my cousin, there arose from the tea-table, where she and
my father were sitting, a spirited and rather angry harangue from Lady
Knollys' lips; I turned my eyes from the music towards the speakers; the
overture swooned away with a little hesitating babble into silence, and I
listened.

Their conversation had begun under cover of the music which I was making,
and now they were too much engrossed to perceive its discontinuance. The
first sentence I heard seized my attention; my father had closed the book
he was reading, upon his finger, and was leaning back in his chair, as he
used to do when at all angry; his face was a little flushed, and I knew the
fierce and glassy stare which expressed pride, surprise, and wrath.

'Yes, Lady Knollys, there's an animus; I know the spirit you speak in--it
does you no honour,' said my father.

'And I know the spirit _you_ speak in, the spirit of _madness_,' retorted
Cousin Monica, just as much in earnest. 'I can't conceive how you _can_ be
so _demented_, Austin. What has perverted you? are you _blind_?'

'_You_ are, Monica; your own unnatural prejudice--_unnatural_ prejudice,
blinds you. What is it all?--_nothing_. Were I to act as you say, I should
be a _coward_ and a traitor. I see, I _do_ see, all that's real. I'm no
Quixote, to draw my sword on illusions.'

'There should be no halting here. How _can_ you--do you ever _think_? I
wonder if you can breathe. I feel as if the evil one were in the house.'

A stern, momentary frown was my father's only answer, as he looked fixedly
at her.

'People need not nail up horseshoes and mark their door-stones with charms
to keep the evil spirit out,' ran on Lady Knollys, who looked pale and
angry, in her way, 'but you open your door in the dark and invoke unknown
danger. How can you look at that child that's--she's _not_ playing,' said
Knollys, abruptly stopping.

My father rose, muttering to himself, and cast a lurid glance at me, as he
went in high displeasure to the door. Cousin Monica, now flushed a little,
glanced also silently at me, biting the tip of her slender gold cross, and
doubtful how much I had heard.

My father opened the door suddenly, which he had just closed, and looking
in, said, in a calmer tone--

'Perhaps, Monica, you would come for a moment to the study; I'm sure you
have none but kindly feelings towards m