For it is to be feared that, had pearls of wit and wisdom dropped from her lips, they would have fallen on equally inattentive ears. Kyrle had said sternly to himself, while on his way to the Lido, that he would be very careful not to devote himself to Aimée; that, because she had asked him to remain in Venice, he was the more bound not to cause her the faintest shadow of annoyance by attentions that might be misconstrued; and that he would only allow himself the pleasure of seeing and of talking to her, as any other chance acquaintance might. But to renounce voluntarily some happiness for which Nature longs is one thing, and to have it forcibly placed beyond reach by outside agency is another. Even if the happiness in question is no more than looking into a pair of soft, dark eyes, and listening to ordinary sentences uttered in a sweet voice, one may be supported in voluntary renunciation by a sense of virtue which is altogether lacking in feeling that the matter is taken out of one’s own power. So Kyrle chafed inwardly against the quiet but resolute hold of Miss Joscelyn upon his attention, even while he said to himself that it was in a degree what he had intended, and that he was glad of an opportunity to prove to these people what an absurd fiction it was that he had ever been Aimée’s lover.
Yet all the time he was conscious of an insistent desire, the hunger of the heart which comes with love, to renew the charm of that half hour in the _atrium_ of St. Mark’s, to take up the thread of conversation where they had dropped it, and feel again that sense of sympathy and comradeship, of understanding and being understood, which had quickened all his being into new life. And, instead of this, he was pacing the beach with Lydia Joscelyn, and lending half an ear to what he called in his own mind empty twaddle.
Twaddle it might be, but empty--that is, devoid of meaning--it was not. Lydia, with an art which did her credit, approached slowly but surely to the point she had distinctly in view; and presently she touched it.
“Percy tells me that you sing beautifully, Mr. Kyrle,” she said. “He declares that he never heard anything finer than your singing in the gondola last night. You must come out with us to-night and let me hear you. I adore fine singing. I wonder that Aimée never mentioned that you had such a fine voice.”