op than Lascelles', and no better squadron leader than Du
Meresq.

The party was so small at dinner that conversation became pretty general.
Captain Lascelles at first tried to be _au mieux_ with the only young
lady present; but he didn't make much way, and began to think her rather
stupid, and to wish that those lively girls his friend Bertie had told
him of would swim or paddle themselves across. To Bluebell the evening
was little short of purgatory. Never had she known Du Meresq so altered.
Scarcely a sentence had passed between them, and his manner was
conventional and guarded. Formerly he had been equally cautious in
public, yet they were always _en rapport_, and some slight glance was
certain to be exchanged in assurance of it.

This night she knew from internal consciousness that they were not,
and that a palpable change had taken place. Her heroic resolutions of
the morning passed away in inconsistent and impotent longing for one
word or gesture to break down this impenetrable wall that seemed to have
arisen between them, and to recall the old happy love-making days. Mrs.
Rolleston asked her to sing. A bird robbed of its nest could not have
felt more disinclined, yet she would try, though her voice sounded
strange to herself, and was harsh and wiry.

Du Meresq wondered what had jarred those silvery tones, and stolen the
melody from the voice he had once thought almost seraphic. Music, and
especially Bluebell's, had ever a potent charm for him. She had abandoned
the song at the end of the verse, and glided without stopping, into an
instrumental piece. There was a subdued hum of voices, but Bertie's was
not among them, and Bluebell knew he was listening as of old. She had
arranged some variations to their favourite valse, and some impulse made
her select that. Keeping the subject cautiously back, and only allowing
suggestions of it to steal into the modulations, it seemed like fugitive
snatches of an air borne on a gust of wind, and overcome by nearer
sounds,--the breeze in the trees, the tinkle of sheep-bells, the brawling
of a brook.

Bertie listened curiously, thought he had caught the air, lost it, and
doubted, till he recognised, in the mocking melody that continually
eluded him, the valse he had so often danced with Bluebell. He shot one
glance of intelligence at her as she finished, but Lascelles, who could
not bear the piece, was so loud in admiration, and found so much to say
about it, that Du Meresq