The song broke this time without a word of pleading. The girl opened her eyes wide and stared breathlessly straight before her at the singer.
"—Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile,
Vole, mon coeur, vole!
Non, ce n'est qu'une etoile
Qu' eclaire nos amours!"
The last word rolled out through its passionate throat tones and died into silence.
"Come!" repeated the man again, this time almost in the accents of command.
She turned slowly and went to him, her eyes childlike and frightened, her lips wide, her face pale. When she stood face to face with him she swayed and almost fell.
"What do you want with me?" she faltered, with a little sob.
The man looked at her keenly, laughed, and exclaimed in an every-day, matter-of-fact voice:
"Why, I really believe my song frightened you. It is only a boating song. Come, let us go and sit on the gun-carriages and talk."
"Oh!" she gasped, a trifle hysterically. "Don't do that again!
Please don't. I do not understand it! You must not!"
He laughed again, but with a note of tenderness in his voice, and took her hand to lead her away, humming in an undertone the last couplet of his song: