“Well, darlings, what are we going to do to-night?” she said. “Shall I tell you a story?”
“No!” said Freddy firmly.
“Stories are stupid,” said Bertie. “Let’s sing. We’ll sing ‘Stille Nacht.’”
So all together, Aline Gurtner in her pretty contralto voice, and the three piping childish trebles sang, “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,” while Nanna turned down their beds, and made the night-nursery tidy.
“That was lovely,” said Bertie with complete conviction, at the end. “Now we’ll have ‘The Watch by the Rhine.’”
“No, darlings, not to-night,” said she. “I must go and dress, because Daddy and I are dining early, as he’s going to drive up to London afterwards.”
“To get his half a million pounds?” asked Jackie.
“Some of it, perhaps. Now, then, I shall say, ‘One, two, three,’ and see who’s in bed first.”
They counted with her, Bertie preferring to do it in German, and a wild scamper across the nursery followed.
But the concert apparently was not over yet, for as she went downstairs, she heard, obscuring the chorale that was rising from the lift, which was on its journey up, a trio rendering of “The Watch by the Rhine,” with curious intervals, but of unmistakable identity.... She felt that she must instantly begin to teach them “God Save the King.”