He got up and stirred the logs in the low grate with his foot. She was lying on the sofa, looking at him.
"Well, have you nothing to say to my beautiful idea?" she asked presently.
The musician gulped at something in his throat.
"It is surprising," he began, with an attempt at his old impressive manner, "how difficult it is to make ourselves understood, especially in our most intimate relations."
"What are you talking about?" said Lady Joan.
"I mean," went on the musician, desperately, "that I don't know how to tell you all that is in my mind, dear. Perhaps it is best left unsaid. I don't know; but--when you ask me what I think of it, I can only feel that it is all sad, dreadfully sad. I'm afraid I have not made it very clear, have I?"
She moved her feet, and he came and sat down on the end of the sofa.
"Tell me what it is that is sad," she asked, shading her eyes with her hand.
"What you have been saying, that there isn't anybody," he said, and boldly moved the hand, and held it fast, and looked into her eyes.
"No more there is,--except you," she answered recklessly, and looked back at him for a moment.
Something surged up to his lips in the silence of the next few minutes, and he held his breath and tightened his grasp on the cold fingers before he said it. Then she pulled away her hand almost roughly, and spoke quickly.
"Do you know it is nearly eleven? Norah had a bad night with the baby last night, and you look awfully tired too. Hadn't you better be moving?"
"You have not told me what you think yet. I suppose you are only laughing at me," she said, when he bade her good-bye.
He found himself smiling in a conventional manner; he could not have said why.
"Oh, no, why should I? I think it is very wise of you," he said, opening the door to go out; "and when I tell Norah she will say 'Just like Joan!' Good-night."
And she answered down the stairs after him, "Good-night, and mind you tell Norah all about it!"
"I'll be hanged if I do," thought the musician, as he walked down the drive; and he congratulated himself all the way back on not having made a fool of himself.
"I'm sure I hope he won't," added Lady Joan to herself out loud, as the front-door banged. Then she walked unsteadily into her boudoir, and made up the fire, and sat down on the sofa, and looked dully into the flames. And presently she turned and hid her face in the cushions, and burst into tears.