at the introduction to the song
was being played a second time, and he saw the Head Master whispering to
his guest. Paralysed with terror, John's intuition told him that the
Head Master was murmuring, "That's the nephew of John Verney. Of course
you know him?" And the Field Marshal nodded. And then he looked at John,
as John had seen him look at Lawrence, with the same flare of
recognition in the steel-grey eyes. Out of the confused welter of faces
shone that pair of eyes--twin beacons flashing their message of
encouragement and salvation to a fellow-creature in peril--at least, so
John interpreted that piercing glance. It seemed to say, far plainer
than words, "I have stood alone as you stand; I have felt my knees as
wax; I have wished to run away. But--_I didn't_. Nor must you. Open your
mouth and sing!"

So John opened his mouth and sang. The first verse of the lyric went
haltingly.

Scaife growled to Desmond, "He _is_ going to make an ass of himself."

And Desmond, meeting Scaife's eyes, half thought that the speaker wished
that John would fail--that he grudged him a triumph. None the less, the
first verse, sung feebly, with wrong phrasing and imperfect
articulation, revealed the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality
Desmond recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or a bit
of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had trained him to
look for and acclaim quality, whether in things animate or inanimate. He
caught hold of Scaife's arm.

"Make an ass of himself!" he whispered back. "Not he. But he may make an
ass of me."

Even as he spoke he was aware that tears were horribly near his eyes.
Some catch in John's voice, some subtle inflection, had smitten his
heart, even as the prophet smote the rock.

"Rot!" said Scaife, angrily.

He was angry, furiously angry, because he saw that Caesar was beyond his
reach, whirled innumerable leagues away by the sound of another's voice.
John had begun the second verse. He stared, as if hypnotized, straight
into the face of the great soldier, who in turn stared as steadily at
John; and John was singing like a lark, with a lark's spontaneous
delight in singing, with an ease and self-abandonment which charmed eye
almost as much as ear. Higher and higher rose the clear, sexless notes,
till two of them met and mingled in a triumphant trill. To Desmond, that
trill was the answer to the quavering, troubled cadences of the first
verse; the vindicatio