"Sing for us," begged the dark-eyed girl; "a native song." The other smiled, and bending forward as if to recollect, began in a low voice, somewhat veiled, but musical and full of meaning.

"The Jasmine Flower," first; then, "My Love is Gathering Dolichos"; and then she sang the long Ballad of the Rice,--of the husband and wife planting side by side, the springing of the green blades, the harvest by millions upon millions of sheaves, the wealth of the State, more fragrant to ancestors than offerings of spice:-- "...O Labor and Love and hallowed Land! Think you these things are but still to come?
Think you they are but near at hand, Only now and here ?--Behold.
They were the same in years of old!" In her plaintive interlude, the slant-eyed servants watched her, nodding and muttering under the camphor trees.
"And here's a song of exile," she said.

"I render it very badly."-- Rudolph had never seen her face like this, bending intently above the lute.

It was as though in the music she found and disclosed herself, without guile.
"...Blue was the sky, And blue the rice-pool water lay Holding the sky; Blue was the robe she wore that day.
Alas, my sorrow! Why Must life bear all away, Away, away, Ah, my beloved, why ?" A murmur of praise went round the group, as she put aside the instrument.
"The sun's getting low," she said lightly, "and I _must_ see that view from the top." Chantel was rising, but sat down again with a scowl, as she turned to Rudolph.

"You've never seen it, Mr.Hackh?
Do come help me up." Inside, with echoing steps, they mounted in a squalid well, obscurely lighted from the upper windows, toward which decaying stairs rose in a dangerous spiral, without guard-rail.