“I am not the baker or the butler,” she replied with a smile, but her firm lips did not soften.

He changed his tactics with adroitness.  If he failed now, it would be final.  He thought he knew where she might be really vulnerable.

“Byng will be disappointed and surprised when he hears of the famine that the prima donna has left behind her.  Byng is one of the best that ever was.  He is trying to do his fellow-creatures a good turn down there at the mine.  He never did any harm that I ever heard of—­and this is his house, and these are his guests.  He would, I’ll stake my life, do Al’mah a good turn if he could, even if it cost him something quite big.  He is that kind of a man.  He would be hurt to know that you had let the best people of the county be parched, when you could give them drink.”

“You said they were hungry a moment ago,” she rejoined, her resolution slowly breaking under the one influence which could have softened her.

“They would be both hungry and thirsty,” he urged.  “But, between ourselves, would you like Byng to come home from a hard day’s work, as it were, and feel that things had gone wrong here while he was away on humanity’s business?  Just try to imagine him having done you a service—­”

“He has done me more than one service,” she interjected.  “You know it as well as I do.  You were there at the opera, three years ago, when he saved me from the flames, and since then—­”

Stafford looked at his watch again with a smile.  “Besides, there’s a far more important reason why you should sing to-night.  I promised some one who’s been hurt badly, and who never heard you sing, that he should hear you to-night.  He is lying there now, and—­”

“Jigger?” she asked, a new light in her eyes, something fleeing from her face and leaving a strange softness behind it.

“Quite so,” he replied.  “That’s a lad really worth singing for.  He’s an original, if ever there was one.  He worships you for what you have done for his sister, Lou.  I’d undergo almost any humiliation not to disappoint Jigger.  Byng would probably get over his disappointment—­he’d only feel that he hadn’t been used fairly, and he’s used to that; but Jigger wouldn’t sleep to-night, and it’s essential that he should.  Think of how much happiness and how much pain you can give, just by trilling a simple little song with your little voice oh, madame la cantatrice?”

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears.  She brushed them away hastily.  “I’ve been upset and angry and disturbed—­and I don’t know what,” she said, abruptly.  “One of my black moods was on me.  They only come once in a blue moon; but they almost kill me when they do.” . . .  She stopped and looked at him steadily for a moment, the tears still in her eyes.  “You are very understanding and gentle—­and sensible,” she added, with brusque frankness and cordiality.  “Yes, I will sing for Rudyard Byng and for Jigger; and a little too for a very clever diplomatist.”  She gave a spasmodic laugh.