and dragged Chantel to the stool. "Come, Gilly, your forfeit!"

The elder man blushed, and coughed.

"Why, really," he stammered. "Really, if you wish me to!"

Heywood slid back into his chair, grinning.

"Proud as an old peacock," he whispered to Rudolph. "Peacock's voice,
too."

Dr. Chantel struck a few jangling chords, and skipping adroitly over
sick notes, ran a flourish. The billiard-players joined the circle, with
absent, serious faces. The singer cleared his throat, took on a
preternatural solemnity, and began. In a dismal, gruff voice, he
proclaimed himself a miner, deep, deep down:--


"And few, I trow, of my being know,
And few that an atom care!"


His hearers applauded this gloomy sentiment, till his cheeks flushed
again with honest satisfaction. But in the full sweep of a brilliant
interlude, Chantel suddenly broke down.

"I cannot," he declared sharply. As he turned on the squealing stool,
they saw his face white and strangely wrought. "I had meant," he said,
with painful precision, "to say nothing to-night, and act as--I cannot.
Judge you, what I feel."