While they still explored his palm, whispering together at intervals, Sengoun caught the chorus of the air which the orchestra was playing, and sang it lustily and with intense pleasure to himself.
Neeland, unquiet to discover how much these casual strangers knew about his own and intimate affairs, had become silent and almost glum.
But the slight gloom which invaded him came from resentment toward those people who had followed him from Brookhollow to Paris, and who, in the very moment of victory, had snatched that satisfaction from him.
He thought of Kestner and of Breslau—of Scheherazade, and the terrible episode in her stateroom.
Except that he had seized the box in the Brookhollow house, there was nothing in his subsequent conduct on which he could plume himself. He could not congratulate himself on his wisdom; sheer luck had carried him through as far as the rue Soleil d’Or—mere chance, and that capricious fortune which sometimes convoys the stupid, fatuous, and astigmatic.
Then he thought of Rue Carew. And, in his bosom, an intense desire to distinguish himself began to burn.
If there were any way on earth to trace that accursed box––
He turned abruptly and looked at the two gipsies, who had relinquished Sangoun’s hand and who were still conversing together in low tones while Sangoun 344 beat time on the jingling table top and sang joyously at the top of his baritone voice:
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“Eh, zoum—zoum—zoum! Boum—boum—boum! Here’s to the Artillery Gaily riding by! Fetch me a distillery, Let me drink it dry— Fill me full of sillery! Here’s to the artillery! Zoum—zoum—zoum! Boum—boum—boum!” |
“Fifi!”