Page:Hichens - The Green Carnation.djvu/82

74 spoons. And we beat each other with the spoons, like children."

"And the dish gives us indigestion," said Madame Valtesi. "I once spent a week with an aunt who had taken to Litany, as other people take to dram-drinking, you know. We went to Litany every day, and I never had so much dyspepsia before in my life. Litany, taken often, is more indigestible than lobster at midnight."

"How exquisite the moon is!" said Lady Locke, rising and going towards the window.

"The moon is the religion of the night," said Esmé. "Go out into the garden all of you, and I will sing to you a song of the moon. It is very beautiful. I shall give it to Jean de Reszke, I think. My voice will sound better from a distance. Good voices always do."

He sat down at the piano, and they strolled out through the French windows into the green and silent pleasaunce.

His voice was clear and open, and he spoke rather than sang the following verses, while they stood listening till the rippling accompaniment trickled away into silence:—

Oh! beautiful moon with the ghostly face,
 * Oh! moon with the brows of snow,

Rise up, rise up from your slumbering place,
 * And draw from your eyes the veil,