vast energy and strength of will. And suspicion grew to certainty that she
and Reid were lovers.

I might have read it in his tone when in the course of the evening he
asked her to sing.

"Then give me a baton," she responded, springing to her feet.

Rolling up a newspaper and seizing a bit of charcoal from the drawing
table, she beat time with both hands, launching suddenly into an air which
she rendered with dramatic expression as rare as her abandon.

"Applaud! Applaud!" she cried, clapping her own hands at the end of a
brilliant passage, her colourless, irregular face alive with enthusiasm,
her black eyes snapping. "If you don't applaud, how do you expect me to
sing? _Vos plaudite!_"

"I'll applaud when you've surely stopped," said Kitty Reid demurely; "but
before we begin an evening of grand opera, I want you to hear the
Princess. Helen, you know you promised."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Helen, colouring at the title, "I can't sing before
Cadge; but if you like, I'll play for you. See if I'm not improving in my
tremolo."

Helen did not sing in the old days, so that I was not surprised at her
refusal. Taking her mandolin, she tinkled an air that I have often heard
her play, but neither I nor any one else had ears for it, so absorbed was
the sense of sight.