She sat and looked at Lady Cardington's tall figure swayed by grief,
listened to the sound of her hoarse, gasping sobs. And then, abruptly, as
if someone came into the room and told her, she understood.
"You love Sir Donald," she said.
Lady Cardington looked up. Her tear-stained, distorted face seemed very
old.
"We both regret the same thing in the same way," she said. "We were both
wretched in--in the time when we ought to have been happy. I thought--I
had a ridiculous idea we might console each other. You shattered my
hope."
"I'm sorry," Lady Holme said.
And she said it with more tenderness than she had ever before used to a
woman.
Lady Cardington pressed a pocket-handkerchief against her eyes.
"Sing me that song again," she whispered. "Don't say anything more. Just
sing it again and I'll go."
Lady Holme went to the piano.
"Torna in fior di giovinezza
Isaotta Blanzesmano,
Dice: Tutto al mondo a vano:
Nell'amore ogni dolcezza."
When the last note died away she looked towards the sofa. Lady Cardington
was gone. Lady Holme leaned her arm on the piano and put her chin in her
hand.
"How awful to be old!" she thought.
Half aloud she repeated the last words of the refrain: "Nell'amore ogni
dolcezza." And then she murmured:
"Poor Sir Donald!"
And then she repeated, "Poor--" and stopped. Again the faint cloud of
fear was in her eyes.
CHAPTER XV
THE Charity Concert was to be given in Manchester House, one of the
private palaces of London, and as Royalty had promised to be present, all
the tickets were quickly sold.
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