Reggie sat down at the piano, and, still watching the two women, he began to play.
"This is the Yaé Sonata," he explained to Geoffrey.
It began with some bars from an old Scottish song:
"Had we never loved so sadly,
Had we never loved so madly,
Never loved and never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted."
Insensibly the pathetic melody faded away into the staccato beat of a geisha's song, with more rhythm than tune, which doubled and redoubled its pace, stumbling and leaping up again over strange syncopations.
All of a sudden the musician stopped.
"I can't describe your wife, now that I see her," he said. "I don't know any dignified old Japanese music, something like the gavottes of Couperin only in a setting of Kyoto and gold screens; and then there must be a dash of something very English which she has acquired from you—'Home, Sweet Home' or 'Sally in our Alley.'"
"Never mind, old chap!" said Geoffrey; "play 'Father's home again!'"
Reggie shook himself; and then struck up the rolling chorus; but, as he interpreted it, his mood turned pensive again. The tone was hushed, the time slower. The vulgar tune expressed itself suddenly in deep melancholy, It brought back to the two young men more forcibly than the most inspired concerto, the memory of England, the sparkle of the theatres, the street din of London, and the warmth of good company—all that had seemed sweet to them in a time which was distant now.
Reggie ceased playing. The two girls were sitting together now on the big black cushion in front of the fire. They were looking at a portfolio of Japanese prints, Reggie's embryo collection.