It was too much like the blue-white lights of the Hippodrome. With
night came the glamour of Fairyland, that magic country in which
Ireland still believes, and which is ever there for those who seek it,
"East o' the Sun, and West o' the Moon."
The yacht drifting idly at anchor in smooth water, the stars in their bed of velvet black, the magic of air and space.
The incense-like scent of Turkish cigarettes and black coffee, the little group of men lounging in their deck chairs, the resonant, full notes of the guitar, and Paul's voice rising out of the shadows.
If he had sung standing on the platform of a brightly lit concert hall half the charm would have vanished in that distraction which the personality of a singer creates.
In the illusion of his surroundings the man himself did not exist.
There was only the voice—the singer. Hungarian folk-songs that fired her blood and made her restless with strange longings; "La vie est vaine," eternally sweet and haunting; then some wickedly witty song of the cafés, and melodies of Gounod full of infinite charm. Last of all came always "Le Rêve," in which Emile and Vladimir joined as if it were some National Anthem, and which left her quivering with excitement.
CHAPTER VII
"There would no man do for your sake, I think,
What I would have done for the least word said;
I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink—
Broken it up for your daily bread."
SWINBURNE.
When the week of dreams and rest was over she went back to the
Hippodrome with somewhat of relief in her feelings.
At least the work prevented her from thinking. Though she was physically less languid, the sea air had neither succeeded in putting any more flesh on what the Manager called her "lean flanks," nor had it made her look much more cheerful. He had the sense to let her take her place as equestrienne once more, and had announced her reappearance in flaming posters.