"We feel that
and we feel it, and--do you?"
"To-day I seem to," answered Lady Holme.
"When you sing that song you look like the love that gives all sweetness
to men. Sing like that, look like that, and you--If Sir Donald had heard
you!"
Lady Holme got up from the piano.
"Sir Donald!" she said.
She came to sit down near Lady Cardington.
"Sir Donald! Why do you say that?"
And she searched Lady Cardington's eyes with eyes full of inquiry.
Lady Cardington looked away. The wistful power that generally seemed a
part of her personality had surely died out in her. There was something
nervous in her expression, deprecating in her attitude.
"Why do you speak about Sir Donald?" Lady Holme said.
"Don't you know?"
Lady Cardington looked up. There was an extraordinary sadness in her
eyes, mingled with a faint defiance.
"Know what?"
"That Sir Donald is madly in love with you?"
"Sir Donald! Sir Donald--madly anything!"
She laughed, not as if she were amused, but as if she wished to do
something else and chose to laugh instead. Lady Cardington sat straight
up.
"You don't understand anything but youth," she said.
There was a sound of keen bitterness in her low voice.
"And yet," she added, after a pause, "you can sing till you break the
heart of age--break its heart."
Suddenly she burst into a flood of tears. Lady Holme was so surprised
that she did absolutely nothing, did not attempt to console, to inquire.
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