“Such power, you know, Miss Featherweight,” he said, sinking into a chair, and mentally wondering if any of the piano strings had given way at that last crash.  “You put your heart into it—­and all your muscle, too, by gad,” he added mentally.

“It’s nothing but practice,” answered Miss Featherweight, with a modest blush.  “I am at the piano four hours every day.”

“Good heavens!” thought Felix, “what a time the family must have of it.”  But he kept this remark to himself, and, screwing his eye-glass into his left organ of vision, merely ejaculated, “Lucky piano.”

Miss Featherweight, not being able to think of any answer to this, looked down and blushed, while the ingenuous Felix looked up and sighed.

Madge and Brian were in a corner of the room talking over Whyte’s death.

“I never liked him,” she said, “but it is horrible to think of him dying like that.”

“I don’t know,” answered Brian, gloomily; “from all I can hear dying by chloroform is a very easy death.”

“Death can never be easy,” replied Madge, “especially to a young man so full of health and spirits as Mr. Whyte was.”

“I believe you are sorry he’s dead,” said Brian, jealously.

“Aren’t you?” she asked in some surprise.

“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” quoted Fitzgerald.  “But as I detested him when alive, you can’t expect me to regret his end.”

Madge did not answer him, but glanced quickly at his face, and for the first time it struck her that he looked ill.

“What is the matter with you, dear?” she asked, placing her hand on his arm.  “You are not looking well.”

“Nothing—­nothing,” he answered hurriedly.  “I’ve been a little worried about business lately—­but come,” he said, rising, “let us go outside, for I see your father has got that girl with the steam-whistle voice to sing.”

The girl with the steam-whistle voice was Julia Featherweight, the sister of Rolleston’s inamorata, and Madge stifled a laugh as she went on to the verandah with Fitzgerald.

“What a shame of you,” she said, bursting into a laugh when they were safely outside; “she’s been taught by the best masters.”

“How I pity them,” retorted Brian, grimly, as Julia wailed out, “Meet me once again,” with an ear-piercing shrillness.

“I’d much rather listen to our ancestral Banshee, and as to meeting her again, one interview would be more than enough.”  Madge did not answer, but leaning lightly over the high rail of the verandah looked out into the beautiful moonlit night.  There were a number of people passing along the Esplanade, some of whom stopped and listened to Julia’s shrill notes.  One man in particular seemed to have a taste for music, for he persistently stared over the fence at the house.  Brian and Madge talked of divers subjects, but every time Madge looked up she saw the man watching the house.

“What does that man want, Brian?” she asked.