ble to discuss it
with Ulick and her father afterwards. This beautiful melody, apparently
so free, was so exquisitely contrived that it contained within itself
descant and harmony. She knew it well; it is a strict canon in unison,
and she had heard it sung by two grey-haired men in the Papal choir in
Rome, soprano voices of a rarer and more radiant timbre than any woman's
sexful voice, and subtle, and, in some complex way, hardly of the earth
at all--voices in which no accent of sex transpired, abstract voices
aloof from any stress of passion, undistressed by any longing, even for
God. They were not human voices, and, hearing them, Evelyn had imagined
angels bearing tall lilies in their hands, standing on wan heights of
celestial landscape, singing their clear silver music.

These men had sung this "Agnus Dei" as perhaps it never would be sung
again, but she knew the boy treble to be incapable of singing this canon
properly, so she could hardly resist the impulse to run up to the choir
loft and tell her father breathlessly that she would take his place. She
smiled at the consternation such an act would occasion. Even if she
could get to the choir loft without being noticed, she could not sing
this music, her voice was full of sex, and this music required the
strange sexless timbre of the voices she had heard in Rome. But the boy
sang better than she anticipated; his voice was wanting in strength and
firmness; she listened, anxious to help him, perplexed that she could
not.

The last Gospel was then read, and she followed Ulick out of church.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

On getting outside the church, they were surprised to find that it had
been raining. The shower had laid the dust, freshened the air, and upon
the sky there was a beautiful flowerlike bloom; the white clouds hung in
the blue air unlifting fugitive palace and tower, and when Evelyn and
Ulick looked into this mysterious cloudland, their hearts overflowed
with an intense joy.

She opened her parasol, and told him that her father was lunching with
the Jesuits. But he and she were going to dine together at Dowlands; and
after dinner they were not to forget to practise the Bach sonata which
was in the programme for the evening concert. She thought of the long
day before them, and with mixed wonderment and pleasure of how much
better they would know each other at the end of the day. She wanted to
know how he thought and felt about things; and it seemed to her