La voile ouvre son aile,
La brise va souffler!
--Menez-moi, dit la belle,
À la rive fidèle
Où l’on aime toujours.
--Cette rive, ma chère,
On ne la connaît guère
Au pays des amours.”
When she had finished, she looked up at him, as he leaned over the tail
of the piano, with laughter in her eyes.
“I adore that song. It is so lovely and irresponsible. Canon Chisely
says it is cynical. But it always puts me in mind of a dragonfly.”
“I am afraid Everard is right,” replied Joyce, with a smile. “But if you
live in the fairyland of love, constancy must be a serious hindrance to
affairs.”
“Oh, now you talk just as you used to!” cried Yvonne, “I ’ll sing you
something else.” She scamped the prelude in her impulsive way, and
began, “Coming thro’ the Rye.” His black mood was lifted. The tender,
mischievous charm of her voice held him in a spell, and he smiled at her
like “a’ the lads” in the song.
“Now it is your turn,” she said, reaching towards a pile of songs. “Help
me to choose one.”
He selected one that he used to sing and commenced it creditably. But
after a few bars he broke down. Yvonne encouraged him to take it again,
which he did with greater success. But his voice, a high baritone, was
wofully out of condition. At a second breakdown, he looked at her in
dismay.
“I fear it’s no good,” he said.
“Oh, yes it is,” said Yvonne. “They don’t want a Santley in the chorus
of the provincial company of a comic-opera. We ’ll have a good long time
now. You shall do some scales. And you can come in to-morrow morning,
before you go to Brum, and have half-an-hour more, and that will set you
right.”
The little authoritative air sat oddly upon her. Vandeleur used to
say that Yvonne in a business mood was even more serious than a child
playing at parson. But she knew she was giving a professional opinion;
and that was bound to be serious. Taking him through the scales,
then, in her best professional manner, she brought the practice to a
satisfactory conclusion. Then she became the sunny Yvonne again, and,
after he had gone, sat smiling to herself with the conscious happiness
of a fairy god-mother.
*****