The evening passed pleasantly enough.  There were one or two courageous amateurs who now and again ventured on a song; but for the most part the music was instrumental.  A young lady, standing with her hands behind her back, gave a recitation, and attempted to draw pathetic tears by picturing the woes of a simple-minded chimney-sweep who accidentally killed his tame sparrow, and who never quite held up his head thereafter; he seemed to pine away somehow, until one morning they found him dead, his face downward on the tiny grave in which he had buried his little playfellow.  Another young lady performed a series of brilliant roulades on a silver bugle, which seemed to afford satisfaction.  A well-known entertainer sat down to the piano and proceeded to give a description of a fashionable wedding; and all the people laughed merrily at the clever and sparkling way in which he made a fool of—­not themselves, of course, but their friends and acquaintances.  And then Lionel Moore went to his hostess.

“Don’t you want me to do anything?” he said.

“You’re too kind,” Lady Adela made answer, with grateful eyes.  “It’s hardly fair.  Still, if I had the courage—­”

“Yes, you have the courage,” he said, smiling.

“If I had the courage to ask you to sing Sybil’s song for her?”

“Of course I will sing it,” he said.

“Will you?  Will you really?  You know, I’m afraid those two girls will never give enough force to it.  And it is a man’s song—­if you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Moore.”

“Where can I get the music?  I’ll just look it over.”

Quite a little murmur of interest went through the place when it was rumored that Lionel Moore was about to sing Lady Sybil’s “Soldiers’ Marching Song,” and when he stepped on to the platform at the upper end of the gallery, people came swarming in from the other rooms.  Lady Sybil herself was to play the accompaniment—­the grand piano being fully opened so as to give free egress to the marshalled chords; and when she sat down to the keyboard, it was apparent that the tall, pale, handsome young lady was not a little tremulous and anxious.  Indeed, it was a very good thing for the composer that she had got Lionel Moore to sing the song; for the quite trivial and commonplace character of the music was in a large measure concealed by the fine and resonant quality of his rich baritone notes.  The chorus was not much of a success—­Lady Sybil’s promised accomplices seemed to have found their courage fail them at the critical moment; but as for the martial ditty itself, it appeared to take the public ear very well; and when Lionel finally folded the music together again, there was quite a little tempest of clapping of hands.  Here and there a half-hearted demand for a repetition was heard; but this was understood to be merely a compliment to Lady Sybil; and indeed Lionel strolled out of the room as soon as his duties were over.  Fortunately no one was so indiscreet as to ask him what he privately thought of the “Soldiers’ Marching Song,” or of its chances of being recommended to the British Army by his royal highness the commander-in-chief.