“Oh, isn’t it be-you-tiful!” she murmured.

Her humid eyes were fixed upon Noble, who was unconscious of the honour.  Florence was susceptible to anything purporting to be music, and this song moved her.  Throughout its delivery from Mr. Clairdyce’s unseen chest, her large eyes dwelt upon Noble, and it is not at all impossible that she was applying the tender words to him, just as the vehement Clairdyce was patently addressing them to Julia.  On he sang, while Noble, staring glassily at the demure lady, made a picture of himself leaping unexpectedly through the window, striding to the noisy barytone, striking him down, and after stamping on him several times, explaining:  “There!  That’s for your insolence to our hostess!” But he did not actually permit himself these solaces; he only clenched and unclenched his fingers several times, and continued to listen.

    “Geev a-mee yewr ra-smile,
      The luv va-ligh TIN yew rise,
      Life cooed not hold a fairrerr paradise. 
    Geev a-mee the righ to luv va-yew all the wile,
      My worrlda for AIV-vorr,
    The sunshigh NUV vyewr-ra-smile!”

The conclusion was thunderous, and as a great noise under such circumstances is an automatic stimulant of enthusiasm, the applause was thunderous too.  Several girls were unable to subdue their outcries of “Charming!” and “Won-derf’l!”—­not even after Mr. Clairdyce had begun to sing the same song as an encore.

When this was concluded, a sigh, long and deep, was heard under the trees.  It came from Florence.  Her eyes, wanly gleaming, like young oysters in the faint light, were still fixed on Noble; and there can be little doubt that just now there was at least one person in the world, besides his mother, who saw him in a glamour as something rare, obs, exquisite, and elegant.  “I think that was the most be-you-tiful thing I ever heard!” she said; and then, noting a stir within the house, she became practical.  “They’re starting refreshments,” she said.  “We better hurry in, Mr. Dill, so’s to get good places.  Thanks to me, there’s plenty to go round.”

She moved toward the house, but, observing that he did not accompany her, paused and looked back.  “Aren’t you goin’ to come in, Mr. Dill?”

“I guess not.  Don’t tell any one I’m out here.”

“I won’t.  But aren’t you goin’ to come in for——­”

He shook his head.  “No, I’m going to wait out here a while longer.”

“But,” she said, “it’s refreshments!”

“I don’t want any.  I—­I’m going to smoke some more, instead.”

She looked at him wistfully, then even more wistfully toward the house.  Evidently she was of a divided mind:  her feeling for Noble fought with her feeling for “refreshments.”  Such a struggle could not endure for long:  a whiff of coffee conjured her nose, and a sound of clinking china witched her ear.  “Well,” she said, “I guess I ought to have some nourishment,” and betook herself hurriedly into the house.