“I hate quarrels,” said Ronnie, “they are so domesticated.”

“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you talk about your home,” said Cicely.

“I fancy it would apply to most homes,” said Ronnie.

“The last boy-friend I had used to quarrel furiously with me at least once a week,” said Cicely reflectively; “but then he had dark slumberous eyes that lit up magnificently when he was angry, so it would have been a sheer waste of God’s good gifts not to have sent him into a passion now and then.”

“With your excursions into the past and the future you are making me feel dreadfully like an instalment of a serial novel,” protested Ronnie; “we have now got to ‘synopsis of earlier chapters.’”

“It shan’t be teased,” said Cicely; “we will live in the present and go no further into the future than to make arrangements for Tuesday’s dinner-party.  I’ve asked the Duchess; she would never have forgiven me if she’d found out that I had a crowned head dining with me and hadn’t asked her to meet him.”

* * * * *

A sudden hush descended on the company gathered in the great drawing-room at Berkshire Street as Ronnie took his seat at the piano; the voice of Canon Mousepace outlasted the others for a moment or so, and then subsided into a regretful but gracious silence.  For the next nine or ten minutes Ronnie held possession of the crowded room, a tense slender figure, with cold green eyes aflame in a sudden fire, and smooth burnished head bent low over the keyboard that yielded a disciplined riot of melody under his strong deft fingers.  The world-weary Landgraf forgot for the moment the regrettable trend of his subjects towards Parliamentary Socialism, the excellent Grafin von Tolb forgot all that the Canon had been saying to her for the last ten minutes, forgot the depressing certainty that he would have a great deal more that he wanted to say in the immediate future, over and above the thirty-five minutes or so of discourse that she would contract to listen to next Sunday.  And Cicely listened with the wistful equivocal triumph of one whose goose has turned out to be a swan and who realises with secret concern that she has only planned the role of goosegirl for herself.

The last chords died away, the fire faded out of the jade-coloured eyes, and Ronnie became once more a well-groomed youth in a drawing-room full of well-dressed people.  But around him rose an explosive clamour of applause and congratulation, the sincere tribute of appreciation and the equally hearty expression of imitative homage.

“It is a great gift, a great gift,” chanted Canon Mousepace, “You must put it to a great use.  A talent is vouchsafed to us for a purpose; you must fulfil the purpose.  Talent such as yours is a responsibility; you must meet that responsibility.”

The dictionary of the English language was an inexhaustible quarry, from which the Canon had hewn and fashioned for himself a great reputation.