Emile walked up and down the room as he listened. He had made her sing in the hope of lessening in a small degree the strain he was enduring, but what had possessed her to choose this song of all others? The words told of one who was about to set sail, and lingered bidding adieu to his Nina, the woman he loved.
"Le jour où quittant la terre pour l'océan,
Je dis, priez Dieu, priez Dieu pour votre enfant.
Avant que nous mettre en route je crus revoir,
Nina! qui pleurait sans doute de désespoir."
One could hear the rocking of the boat at anchor, the rippling of the out-going tide.
In the second verse the time was changed, the words were hurried and insistent.
"Nina! si je succombe, el qu'un beau soir,
Une blanche colombe vient te voir,
Ouvre-lui ta fenêtre car ce sera,
Mon âme qui peut-être te reviendra."
Her voice had grown weaker since her illness, and she sang with visible exertion and faulty breathing, but it was still the golden voice of the Israelitish woman, and there was the same tîmbre that had attracted him, and made him speak to her that afternoon in May at the station.
And all that had only happened six months ago! When she had finished he said nothing in approval, but he asked her to sing again, and she understood, and was pleased.
"You may thank the Fates for having given you a voice," he told her. "It's better than a face. It lasts longer. No man having once heard you would listen to another woman."
It was the first compliment he had ever made her, but Arithelli did not answer. Her back was turned towards him as she gathered together the music.
He could see that her whole body was trembling with repressed sobs. If he could only have been sure they were for him, he would have taken her in his arms. She was sorry he was going, perhaps, in a way, but not in the way he wanted. She had become dependent upon him, and he had filled a certain place in her life. If she made a scene it was entirely his own fault. Farewells were always a mistake, and he had been foolish enough to allow her to sing sentimental verses about doves and people's wandering souls. She was over-tired and over-wrought, and a woman's tears were more often due to physical than to mental reasons. So he argued, trying to convince himself, yet knowing all the time that Arithelli was not one of the women whose emotions are on the surface.