thing in the world that he should be called upon to accompany Edith's Mass.
"We're going to have service directly, if you're ready. We want you to accompany Miss Staines's Mass in G flat, but you mustn't take the Kyrie too quick, if you don't mind. Bertie Arbuthnot's singing tenor, and he's not very quick—are you, Bertie? Oh, by the way, this is Bertie. His other name is Mr. Arbuthnot."
Herr Truffen was most gratified by so charming an arrangement, and so great a musical treat. When Edith came down she greeted him effusively.
"My dear Professor, this is delightful," she said. "It's quite like old times, isn't it? We're going to do the Mass in G flat. I wanted the one in A, only there are no French horns in the village—isn't that benighted? And would you believe it, Lady Chesterford has positively got not one musical footman."
Herr Truffen was a large, spectacled German, who made everyone else look unnecessarily undersized.
He laughed and fitted his fingers together with great nicety.
"Are we to begin at once?" he asked. "The congregation—haf they arrived?"
"Oh, there's no congregation," explained Dodo; "we are all performers. It is only a substitute for going to church. I hope you aren't shocked; it was such a disgusting morning."
"Lady Chesterford is surely a congregation in herself," remarked Herr Truffen, with elephantine elegance.
"Lord Chesterford is coming by-and-by," continued Dodo. "He has gone to church. I don't know whether he will be in time for the Mass."
"Then you haf all the service in a little chapel here, no doubt," said the Professor.
"Oh, no," said Dodo; "we're going to have two lessons and the Mass, and there isn't a chapel, it's only in the drawing-room. I'm going to read the lessons."
Herr Truffen bowed with undiminished composure, and Dodo led the way back into the drawing-room.
Miss Grantham and Jack were introduced, and Dodo took her place at the praying-table, and Herr Truffen at the piano. Dodo gave out the lesson, and read the chapter through..
"Oh, it is nice!" she exclaimed. "Sha'n't I go on to the next chapter? No, I think I won't."
"It would spoil the delightful impression of the very dry bones?" interrogated Herr Truffen from the piano. "Ah, that is splendid; but you should hear it in the Fatherland tongue."
"Now, Dodo, come here," said Edith. "We must go on with this. You can discuss it afterwards. On the third beat. Will you give us the time, Professor?"
The Mass had scarcely begun when Lord Chesterford came in, followed by Mrs. Vivian and Maud. The Professor, who evidently did not quite understand that he was merely a sort of organist, got up and shook hands all round with laboured cordiality. Edith grew impatient.
"Come," she said, "you mustn't do that. Remember you are practically in church, Professor. Please begin again."
"Ah, I forgot for the moment," remarked the Professor; "this beautiful room made me not remember. Come—one, two. We must begin better than that. Now, please."
This time the start was made in real earnest. Edith's magnificent voice, and the Professor's playing, would alone have been sufficient to make it effective. The four performers knew their parts well, and when it was finished, there followed that silence which is so much more appreciative than applause. Then Herr Truffen turned to Edith.
"Ah, how you have improved," he said. "Who taught you this? It is beyond me. Perhaps you prayed and fasted, and then it came to you."
As Edith had chiefly written the Mass while smoking cigarettes after a hearty breakfast she merely said,—
"How does anything come to anyone? It is part of oneself, as much as one's arms and legs. But the service is not over yet."
Dodo meanwhile had gone back to the praying-table.
"I can't find it," she said, in a distracted whisper. "It's a chapter in the Revelation about a grey horse and a white horse."
"Dodo," said Edith, in an awful voice.
"Yes, dear," said Dodo. "Ah, here it is."
Dodo read the chapter with infinite feeling in her beautiful clear, full voice.
Chesterford was charmed. He had not seen this side of Dodo before. After she had finished, he came and sat by her side, while the others got up and began talking among themselves.
"Dodo," he said, "I never knew you cared about these things. What an unsympathetic brute I must seem to you. I never talked to you about such things, because I thought you did not care. Will you forgive me?"
"I don't think you need forgiveness much," said
Dodo softly. "If you only knew——" She stopped and finished her sentence by a smile.
"Dodo," he said again, "I've often wanted to suggest something to you, but I didn't quite like to. Why don't we have family prayers here? I might build a little chapel."
Dodo felt a sudden inclination to laugh. Her æsthetic pleasure in the chapter of Revelation was gone. She felt annoyed and amused at this simple-minded man, who thought her so perfect, and ascribed such fatiguingly high interpretations to all her actions. He really was a little stupid and tiresome. He had broken up all her little pleasant thoughts.
"Oh, family prayers always strike me as rather ridiculous," she said, with a half yawn. "A row of gaping servants is not conducive to the emotions."
She got up and joined the other groups, and then suddenly became aware that, for the first time, she had failed in her part. Jack was watching her, and saw what had happened. Chesterford had remained, seated at the window, pulling his long, brown moustache, with a very perceptible shade of annoyance on his face. Dodo felt a sudden impulse of anger with herself at her stupidity. She went back to Chesterford.
"Dear old boy," she said, "I don't know why I said that. I was thinking of something else. I don't know that I like family prayers very much. We used to have them at home, when my father was with us, and it really was a trial to hear him read the Litany. I suppose it is that which has made me rather tired of them. Come and talk to the Professor."
Then she went across to Jack.
"Jack," she said, in a low voice, "don't look as if you thought you were right."
Chapter Six
The same afternoon Chesterford took Mrs. Vivian off to see "almshouses and drunkards," as Dodo expressed it to Jack. She also told him that Edith and her Herr were playing a sort of chopsticks together in the drawing-room. Maud had, as usual, effaced herself, and Bertie was consuming an alarming number of cigarettes in the smoking-room, and pretending to write letters.
It was natural, therefore, that when Jack strolled into the hall, to see what was going on, he should find Dodo there with her toes on the fender of the great fireplace, having banished the collie to find other quarters for himself.
