"Why, how do you mean, what sort? We are dilettanti, I suppose."
"No—what is your instrument? The piano?"
"Yes—the pianoforte. And my wife sings. But we are very much out of practice. I have been at the war four years, and we have had our home in Paris. My wife was in Paris, she did not wish to stay in Italy alone. And so—you see—everything goes—"
"But you will begin again?"
"Yes. We have begun already. We have music on Saturday mornings. Next Saturday a string quartette, and violin solos by a young Florentine woman—a friend—very good indeed, daughter of our Professor Tortoli, who composes—as you may know—"
"Yes," said Aaron.
"Would you care to come and hear—?"
"Awfully nice if you would—" suddenly said the wife, quite simply, as if she had merely been tired, and not talking before.
"I should like to very much—"
"Do come then."
While they were making the arrangements, Algy came up in his blandest manner.
"Now Marchesa—might we hope for a song?"
"No—I don't sing any more," came the slow, contralto reply.
"Oh, but you can't mean you say that deliberately—"
"Yes, quite deliberately—" She threw away her cigarette and opened her little gold case to take another.
"But what can have brought you to such a disastrous decision?"
"I can't say," she replied, with a little laugh. "The war, probably."
"Oh, but don't let the war deprive us of this, as of everything else."
"Can't be helped," she said. "I have no choice in the matter. The bird has flown—" She spoke with a certain heavy languor.
