Presently, close by, the notes of a guitar came like little gold butterflies out of the twilight, and then a woman's voice rose like a silver bird on the air. It was a gay wooing measure to which she sang. I listened with ears and heart. "All ye," it went,—
All ye who seek for pleasure,
Here find it without measure—
No one to say
A body nay,
And naught but love and leisure.
All ye who seek forgetting,
Leave frowns and fears and fretting,
Here by the sea
Are fair and free
To give you peace and petting.
All ye whose hearts are breaking
For somebody forsaking,
We'll count you dear,
And heal you here,
And send you home love-making."
"Bravo!" I cried involuntarily, as the song ended amid multitudinous applause; and I thus attracted the attention of another who sat near me as lonely as myself, but evidently quite at home in the place.
"You haven't heard our sirens sing before?" he said, turning to me with a pleasant smile, and thus we fell into talk of the place and its pleasures.
"There's one feature of the place I might introduce you to if you care for a stroll," he said presently. "Have you heard of The Twelve Golden-Haired Bar-maids?" I hadn't, but the fantastic name struck my fancy. It was, he explained, the name given to a favourite buffet at the Hotel Aphrodite, which was served by twelve wonderful girls, not one under six feet in height, and all with the most glorious golden hair. It was a whim of the management, he said.
So, of course, we went.