really feel at all.

It seemed so awfully unfair and rotten, just as if we were both trying to touch Cheneston's heart with the same melody, and she had a glorious grand to work on, and I just a little boarding-house upright.

They had blue chinese lanterns with apple-blossom pattern on the stoep, and great copper bowls of larkspurs and pale pink carnations everywhere, and black cushions on all the white wicker chairs; and Grace wore black with an enormous blue sash.

She was singing in the drawing-room, with Walter Markham turning over her music, and when she came out on to the stoep she said:

"Surely, Pam, you play or something?"

"I sing a little," I said.

"Then do try," said she—you know the sort of woman who always asks another woman to "try" to sing.

I went straight to the piano and I sang "Melisande in the Wood," accompanying myself.

I think my voice has a funny register, it seems to surprise people. It's terrifically deep and strong and soft—almost "furry."

It's rather disconcerting, because it doesn't sound as if it belonged to me at all; I am like a doll's house fitted with a church organ.

I don't think I have ever sung as I did that night. I was pealing and ringing and chanting inside before ever I started, and all that was there in my heart seemed to rush into my voice.

It was like some great big longing, hoping, sad she-spirit singing.

When the last "sleep" had sort of slid away, I turned round; they were all in the room staring—just staring.

Walter Markham came over to see me.

"You are wonderful!" he said. "Pam—you are wonderful!"

I looked at Cheneston, suddenly I felt as if I had taken control of my background.

Cheneston's face was white.

His face was the face of a discoverer.

He bent over me.

"You have an extraordinary voice, Pam," he said, "amazing—— But of course it lies—women use their singing voices to tell lies—wonderful, beautiful, sweet-sounding lies."

"Sing again," Grace said.

But I would not sing again; I had made my effect—I own it quite, quite honestly—I could have shrieked with triumph.

So Grace sang.

She sang "Rose in the Bud"—and it was like the trickling after the pour had ceased.

I think they all felt it.

They began to talk.

Cheneston did not talk; he leant back against the black cushions and stared into the garden with a white face.