“Would you mind,” said Euterpe quietly, “drawing back that curtain from the front of the room? A few minutes ago Erato fainted, and I can’t bring her round again. I think the cool night air might revive her.”
Terpsichore drew back the curtain, grumbling to herself. “Just like her—we shall have the whole place turned into a regular hospital again, I expect.”
VII.
THALIA’S STORY: THE CAMEL WHO NEVER GOT STARTED.
ERATO soon recovered consciousness, although she did not regain the spirit which she had shown at the commencement of the evening. She leaned, white and listless, on a pile of cushions. Cupid had brought her water to drink; and now he waited, seated on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chin and his hands clasped over them, gazing lovingly and sadly at his dear Erato, or downward in sheer dejection at the mosaic. Euterpe, at Erato’s request, had gone to the piano. For some time she sat playing nothing in particular with great feeling and much expression; but she went songwards in the end, as she always did. As far as I can remember the words, they were something like this—it is called “Malcontent”:
At Somerset House in the noontide hour, and close to the roar of the Strand,
The kind policeman looks to the sky with a piece of bread in his hand,
And the pigeons all come fluttering down, because they understand.
Would that I might a pigeon be,
For some one on earth to care for me!