Artists -- Fiction; England -- Fiction; Love stories; Rich people -- Fiction
"Talking of something 'really exciting in the way of music,'" said
Pauline Lister, "we had it on board when we came over. There was a nice
friendly crowd on board the Arabic, and they arranged a concert for
half-past eight on the Thursday evening. We were about two hundred
miles off the coast of Ireland, and when we came up from dinner we had
run into a dense fog. At eight o'clock they started blowing the
fog-horn every half-minute, and while the fog-horn was sounding you
couldn't hear yourself speak. However, all the programmes were printed,
and it was our last night on board, so they concluded to have the
concert all the same. Down we all trooped into the saloon, and each
item of that programme was punctuated by the stentorian BOO of the
fog-horn every thirty seconds. You never heard anything so cute as the
way it came in, right on time. A man with a deep bass voice sang ROCKED
IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP, and each time he reached the refrain, 'And
calm and peaceful is my sle-eep,' BOO went the fog-horn, casting a
certain amount of doubt on our expectations of peaceful sleep that
night, anyway. Then a man with a sweet tenor sang OFT IN THE STILLY
NIGHT, and the fog-horn showed us just how oft, namely, every thirty
seconds. But the queerest effect of all was when a girl had to play a
piano-forte solo. It was something of Chopin's, full of runs and trills
and little silvery notes. She started all right; but when she was
half-way down the first page, BOO went the fog-horn, a longer blast
than usual. We saw her fingers flying, and the turning of the page, but
not a note could we hear; and when the old horn stopped and we could
hear the piano again, she had reached a place half-way down the second
page, and we hadn't heard what led to it. My! it was funny. That went
on all through. She was a plucky girl to stick to it. We gave her a
good round of applause when she had finished, and the fog-horn joined
in and drowned us. It was the queerest concert experience I ever had.
But we all enjoyed it. Only we didn't enjoy that noise keeping right on
until five o'clock next morning."
Jane had turned in her chair, and listened with appreciative interest
while the lovely American girl talked, watching, with real delight, her
exquisite face and graceful gestures, and thinking how Dal must enjoy
looking at her when she talked with so much charm and animation. She
glanced down, trying to see the admiration in his eyes; but his head
was bent, and he was apparently absorbed in the occupation of tracing
the broguing of her shoes with the long stalk of a chestnut leaf. For a
moment she watched the slim brown hand, as carefully intent on this
useless task, as if working on a canvas; then she suddenly withdrew her
foot, feeling almost vexed with him for his inattention and apparent
indifference.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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