“I trust Captain Forsythe did not repeat that absurd remark of mine?” she observed lightly, when John Steele, after a few moments’ general talk, found himself somehow by her side.

“About ’commanding’?”

“So he did?” she answered gaily.  “He told me he was going to.  It is like him; he poses as a bel esprit.  Stupid, was it not?”

He answered a word in the negative; the girl smiled; where other men would press the opportunity for a compliment he apparently found no opening.

She waved her hand to the seat next to her, and as he sat down—­“Isn’t it splendid!” irrelevantly.

“The spectacle, or the opera?” he asked slowly, looking into blue eyes.

“It was the opera I meant.  I suppose the spectacle is very grand; but,” enthusiastically, “it was the music I was thinking of—­how it grips one!  Tell me what you think of The Barber, Mr. Steele.”

“I’m afraid my views wouldn’t be very interesting,” he answered.  “I know nothing whatever about music.”

“Nothing?” Her eyes widened a little; in her accent was mild wonder.

He looked down at the shimmering white folds near his feet.  “In earlier days my environment was not exactly a musical one.”

“No?  I suppose you were engaged in more practical concerns?”

He did not answer directly.  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me something about Rossini’s music, Miss Wray?”

“I tell you?” Her light silvery laugh rang out.  “And Captain Forsythe has only been telling me—­all of us—­that you were one of the best informed men he had ever met.”

“You see how wrong he was!”

“Quite!” The blue eyes regarded him sidewise.  He, the keen, strong man, so assured, so invincible in the court room, sat most humbly by her side, confessing his ignorance, want of knowledge about something every school-girl is mistress of!  “Or, perhaps, it is because your world is so different from mine!  Music, laughter, the traditions of Italian bel canto, you have no room for them, they are too light, too trifling.  You are above them,” poising her fair head a little higher.

“Perhaps they have been above me,” he answered, his tone unconsciously taking an accent of gaiety from the lightness of hers.

The abrupt appearance of the musicians and the dissonances attendant on tuning, interrupted her response; Steele rose and was about to take his departure, when Sir Charles intervened.

“Why don’t you stay?” he asked, with true colonial heartiness.  “Plenty of room!  Unless you’ve a better place!  Two vacant chairs!”