e folk
intellectually, but, of all singers I have known, she was mentally the
very feeblest."

"No, perhaps she was not very wise," Helen put in, but quite mildly,
quite kindly.

"And so if the voice went, everything went. And that made one reflect
agreeably upon the remarkably haphazard methods employed by that which
we politely call Almighty God in His construction of our unhappy
selves. Design?--There's not a trace of design in the whole show.
Bodies, souls, gifts, superfluities, deficiencies, just pitched
together anyhow. The most bungling of human artists would blush to turn
out such work."

Richard spoke rapidly. He had refused course after course. And now the
food on his plate remained untasted. Seen in the soft light of the
shaded candles his face had a strange look of distraction upon it, as
though he too was restless with an intimate, deep-seated restlessness.
His skin was less colourless than usual, his manner less colourless
also. And this conferred a certain youthfulness on him, making him seem
nearer--so Helen thought--to the boy she had known at Brockhurst, than
to the man, whom lately, she had been so signally conscious that she
failed to know.

"No, I hope Morabita's voice remains to her," he continued. "Her
absolute nullity minus it is disagreeable to think of. And much as I
relish collecting telling examples of the fatuity of the Creator--she,
voiceless, would offer a supreme one--I would spare her that, poor
dear. For she was really rather charming to me at one time."

"So it was commonly reported," Helen remarked.

"Was it?" Richard said absently.

Though as a rule conspicuously abstemious, he had drunk rather freely
to-night, and that with an odd haste of thirst. Now he touched his
champagne tumbler, intimating to Bates, the house-steward--sometime the
Brockhurst under butler--that it should be refilled.

"I can't have seen Morabita for nearly three years," he went on. "And
my last recollections of her are unfortunate. She had sent me a box, in
Vienna it was I think, for the _Traviata_. She was fat then, or rather,
fatter. Stage furniture leaves something to desire in the way of
solidity. In the death scene the middle of the bed collapsed. Her
swan-song ceased abruptly. Her head and heels were in the air, and the
very largest rest of her upon the floor, bed and bedclothes standing
out in a frill all around. It was a sight discouraging to sentiment. I
judged it kinder not to go to supper