Lali’s heart fluttered a little at first, for the day had been trying, and she was not as strong as she could wish. Admirably as she had gone through the season, it had worn on her, and her constitution had become sensitive and delicate, while yet strong. The life had almost refined her too much. Always on the watch that she should do exactly as Marion or Mrs. Armour, always so sensitive as to what was required of her, always preparing for this very time, now that it had come, and her heart and mind were strong, her body seemed to weaken. Once or twice during the day she had felt a little faint, but it had passed off, and she had scolded herself. She did not wish a serious talk with her husband to-night, but she saw now that it was inevitable.
He said to her as he sat down beside her: “You sing very well indeed. The song is full of meaning, and you bring it all out.”
“I am glad you like it,” she responded conventionally. “Of course it’s an unusual song for an English drawing-room.”
“As you sing it, it would be beautiful and acceptable anywhere, Lali.”
“Thank you again,” she answered, closing and unclosing her fan, her eyes wandering to where Mrs. Armour was. She wished she could escape, for she did not feel like talking, and yet though the man was her husband she could not say that she was too tired to talk; she must be polite. Then, with a little dainty malice: “It is more interesting, though, in the vernacular--and costume!”
“Not unless you sang it so,” he answered gallantly, and with a kind of earnestness.
“You have not forgotten the way of London men,” she rejoined.
“Perhaps that is well, for I do not know the way of women,” he said, with a faint bitterness. “Yet, I don’t speak unadvisedly in this,”--here he meant to be a little bold and bring the talk to the past,--“for I heard you sing that song once before.”
She turned on him half puzzled, a little nervous. “Where did you hear me sing it?”
He had made up his mind, wisely enough, to speak with much openness and some tact also, if possible. “It was on the Glow Worm River at the Clip Claw Hills. I came into your father’s camp one evening in the autumn, hungry and tired and knocked about. I was given the next tent to yours. It was night, and just before I turned in I heard your voice singing. I couldn’t understand much of the language, but I had the sense of it, and I know it when I hear it again.”