“What is it?” I asked. “What is the matter?”
He ignored, or did not hear, my question. The bearded person was still waving his hands. The orchestra burst into a sort of triumphal march and then into the open space between the tables came—Frances Morley.
She was dressed in a simple evening gown, she was not painted or powdered to the extent that women who had sung before her had been, her hair was simply dressed. She looked thinner than she had when I last saw her, but otherwise she was unchanged. In that place, amid the lights and the riot of color, the silks and satins and jewels, the flushed faces of the crowd, she stood and bowed, a white rose in a bed of tiger lilies, and the crowd rose and shouted at her.
The orchestra broke off its triumphal march and the leader stood up, his violin at his shoulder. He played a bar or two and she began to sing.
She sang a simple, almost childish, love song in French. There was nothing sensational about it, nothing risque, certainly nothing which should have appealed to the frequenters of L'Abbaye. And her voice, although sweet and clear and pure, was not extraordinary. And yet, when she had finished, there was a perfect storm of “Bravos.” Parasols waved, flowers were thrown, and a roar of applause lasted for minutes. Why this should have been is a puzzle to me even now. Perhaps it was because of her clean, girlish beauty; perhaps because it was so unexpected and so different; perhaps because of the mystery concerning her. I don't know. Then I did not ask. I sat in my chair at the table, trembling from head to foot, and looking at her. I had never expected to see her again and now she was before my eyes—here in this place.
She sang again; this time a jolly little ballad of soldiers and glory and the victory of the Tri-Color. And again she swept them off their feet. She bowed and smiled in answer to their applause and, motioning to the orchestra leader, began without accompaniment, “Loch Lomond,” in English. It was one of the songs I had asked her to sing at the rectory, one I had found in the music cabinet, one that her mother and mine had sung years before.
“Ye'll take the high road
And I'll take the low road,
And I'll be in Scotland afore ye—”
I was on my feet. I have no remembrance of having risen, but I was standing, leaning across the table, looking at her. There were cries of “Sit down” in English and other cries in French. There were tugs at my coat tails.
“But me and my true love
Shall never meet again,
By the bonny, bonny banks
Of Loch—”
She saw me. The song stopped. I saw her turn white, so white that the rouge on her cheeks looked like fever spots. She looked at me and I at her. Then she raised her hand to her throat, turned and almost ran from the room.