Page:Adams - A Child of the Age.djvu/174

162 and the sofa with a slight rustle. There seemed something of hushed, but withal dreamy in the air: perhaps the quiet after the sunny wind-tempest of dinner-time.

Then Sir James spoke, his words sounding somewhat as a return to one's past humanity.

'I have as good as promised Mr. Leicester, Corisande,' he said, 'that you would give us Retsky's setting of Vivian's "Lullaby." I hope I did not take too much upon myself?' She raised her eyebrows a little and the corners of her mouth, as she answered: 'But you forget that I only sang it to you the night before last, Rayne, I am sure, must be quite tired of the very name of Vivian by this time.'

'No,' she said, 'his story is too sad for one to be so soon tired of hearing his name. I should like to hear the Lullaby again.'

'Vivian,' said Sir James, now addressing me, 'was an old school-fellow of mine, and I might add—friend.'

I asked about Vivian. Sir James gave particulars of him:

'He ran away from Eton and came up to London, with the idea of achieving fame and fortune with his poetry. It is needless to say that he achieved neither. His parents were poor and obstinate,—and he, he had the pride of Milton's Satan. He died—starved, rather than ask help from anyone, A volume of his poems has just been published: this is it. You were reading it, Rayne?'

'Yes,' she said; 'I was reading it this morning.'

'How old was he?' I asked.

'A mere boy,' he said, 'eighteen or nineteen. Poor fellow! There is nothing really remarkable in any of his poems, as poems. Their chief interest lies in the fact of their having been written by one so young,'

I still stood thinking.—'Poor fellow! Nay, but I account him rich; for the strife of living and the terror of dying are for him both past and over now, and he is at rest,'

Miss Cholmondeley had passed into the other half of the drawing-room through the hanging lace-curtains, to where Sir James was standing fingering the music.