“Aye,” Ta-user took it up.  “They made thee sing in the temple and it went sore against thee, Kenkenes.  Most of the upper classes in the college here were hoarse or treble by turns, and the priests required thee by force from thy tutors because thou couldst sing.  Thou wast a stubborn lad, as pretty as a mimosa and as surly as a caged lion.  I can see thee now chanting, with a voice like a lark, and frowning like a very demon from Amenti!”

The princess laughed musically at her own narration and received the applause of the others with a serene countenance.  She had repaid Kenkenes for his implied championship of her cause earlier in the evening.

“Art still as reluctant, Kenkenes?” the Lady Senci called to him.

Kenkenes looked at the lyre and did not answer at once.  There was no song in his heart and a moody silence seemed more like to possess his lips.  His audience, too, was not in the temper for song.  He took in the expression of the guests with a single comprehensive glance.  Siptah’s hands were clenched and his face was blackened with a frown.  Ta-user’s silken brows were lifted, and even the pallid countenance of the prince was set and his eyes were fixed on nothing.  Seti was entangled by the princess’ witchery and he saw no one else.  Io, blanched and miserable, forgotten by Seti, forgot all others.  In his heart Kenkenes knew that Nechutes was unhappy and Hotep and Masanath; and even if there were those in the banquet-room who had no overweening sorrow, the evident discontent of the troubled oppressed them.

Far from finding inspiration for song in the faces of the guests, Kenkenes felt an impulse to rush out of the atmosphere of unrest and unhappiness into the solitary night, where no intrusion of another’s sorrow could dispute the great triumph of his own grief.  The bitter soul in him longed to laugh at the idea of singing.

The hesitation between Senci’s invitation and his answer was not noticeable.  He put the instrument out of his reach, tossing it on a cushion a little distance away.

“Not so reluctant,” he said, turning his face toward the lady, “as unready.  I have exhausted my trove of songs for this self-same company,—­wherefore they will not listen to reiteration, which is ever insipid.”

Senci wisely accepted his excuse, and pressed him no further.  One or two of the more observant members of the company looked at him, with comprehension in their eyes.  Seldom, indeed, had Kenkenes refused to sing, and his reluctance corroborated their suspicions that all was not well with the young artist.

The irrepressible Menes observed to Io in one of his characteristic undertones, but so that all the company heard it:  “What makes us surly to-night?  Look at Kenkenes; I think he is in love!  What aileth thee, sweet Io?  Hast lost much to that gambling pair—­Ta-meri and Nechutes?  And behold thy fellows!  What a sulky lot!  I am the most cheerful spirit among us.”