He ran his fingers lightly over the keys, and dashed into a brilliant Offenbach galop, which had the effect of waking up the people in the drawing-room, who felt sleepy after dinner, and sent the blood tingling through their veins.  When they were thoroughly roused, Felix, now that he had an appreciative audience, for he was by no means an individual who believed in wasting his sweetness on the desert air, prepared to amuse them.

“You haven’t heard the last new song by Frosti, have you?” he asked, after he had brought his galop to a conclusion.

“Is that the composer of ‘Inasmuch’ and ‘How so?’” asked Julia, clasping her hands.  “I do love his music, and the words are so sweetly pretty.”

“Infernally stupid, she means,” whispered Peterson to Brian.  “They’ve no more meaning in them than the titles.”

“Sing us the new song, Felix,” commanded his wife, and her obedient husband obeyed her.

It was entitled, “Somewhere,” words by Vashti, music by Paola Frosti, and was one of those extraordinary compositions which may mean anything—­that is, if the meaning can be discovered.  Felix had a pleasant voice, though it was not very strong, and the music was pretty, while the words were mystical.  The first verse was as follows:—­

“A flying cloud, a breaking wave,
A faint light in a moonless sky: 
A voice that from the silent grave
Sounds sad in one long bitter cry. 
I know not, sweet, where you may stand,
With shining eyes and golden hair,
Yet I know, I will touch your hand
And kiss your lips somewhere—­
Somewhere!  Somewhere!—­
When the summer sun is fair,
Waiting me, on land or sea,
Somewhere, love, somewhere!”

The second verse was very similar to the first, and when Felix finished a murmur of applause broke from every one of the ladies.

“How sweetly pretty,” sighed Julia.  “Such a lot in it.”

“But what is its meaning?” asked Brian, rather bewildered.

“It hasn’t got one,” replied Felix, complacently.  “Surely you don’t want every song to have a moral, like a book of Aesop’s Fables?”

Brian shrugged his shoulders, and turned away with Madge.

“I must say I agree with Fitzgerald,” said the doctor, quickly.  “I like as song with some meaning in it.  The poetry of the one you sang is as mystical as Browning, without any of his genius to redeem it.”

“Philistine,” murmured Felix, under his breath, and then vacated his seat at the piano in favour of Julia, who was about to sing a ballad called, “Going Down the Hill,” which had been the rage in Melbourne musical circles during the last two months.