A Voice in the Wilderness
ideal and ours, and on Sir Julian Crum to accompany her, if he will."
At Mrs. Clarkson's stony side the great man dropped both arms at the superb impudence of the invitation.
"Quite right, Sir Julian; let the blood run into them," said Stingaree. "It is a pure oversight that you were not exempted in the beginning. Comply with my entreaty and I guarantee that you shall suffer no further inconvenience."
Sir Julian wavered. In London he was a clubman and a diner-out; and what a tale for the Athenæum—what a short cut to every ear at a Kensington dinner-table! In the end it would get into the papers. That was the worst of it. But in the midst of Sir Julian's hesitation his pondering eyes met those of Miss Bouverie—on fire to sing him his own song—alight with the ability to do it justice. And Sir Julian was lost.
How she sang it may be guessed. Sir Julian bowed and swayed upon his stool. Stingaree stood by with a smile of personal pride and responsibility, but with both revolvers still levelled, and one of them cocked. It was a better song than he had supposed. It gained enormously from the composer's accompaniment. The last verse was softer than another would have made it, and yet
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