Running her slim white hands over the keys, she began the gay refrain of one of the chansonettes which she had learned in Paris—one of the gay songs of the boulevards, which was, perhaps, not very apropos for young ladies, but which she often sang because of its gay, blithe air—Belloche’s “L’Eventail Parisien.”
In her sweet, musical treble she sang gaily—
Dès qu’arrivent les grand’s chaleurs,
À la terrass’ des brasseries
Les éventails de tout’s couleurs
Viennent bercer nos rêveries.
Car, pour allécher le client,
Le camelot toujours cocasse
En s’éventant d’un air bonasse
Envoi’ ce petit boniment:
And then, with a swing and go, she sang the chorus—
Ça va, ça vient,
Ça donn’ de l’air, ça fait du bien.
C’est vraiment magnifique.
Quel instrument magique!
Ça va, ça vient,
Ca donn’ de l’air et du maintien
Et ça ne coûte presque rien:
Voici l’éventail parisien!
Hardly had she concluded the final line when the door opened and a tall, dark-haired, good-looking young man entered, crossed to her, and, placing his hand upon her shoulder, bent and kissed her fondly.
“Why, Jack, dear—you really are late!” the girl exclaimed. “Were you kept at the office?”
“Yes, dearest,” was his answer. “Or rather I had some work that I particularly wanted to finish, so I stayed behind.”
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a pair of keen, merry brown eyes, a handsome face with high, intelligent brow, as yet unlined by care, a small, dark moustache, and a manner as courteous towards a woman as any diplomat accredited to the Court of St. James.
Jack Sainsbury, though merely an employee of the Ochrida Copper Corporation, a man who went by “Tube” to the City each morning and returned each night to the modest little flat in Heath Street, at which his sister Jane acted as housekeeper for him, was an honest, upright Englishman who had, in the first month of the war, done his duty and gone to the recruiting office of the Honourable Artillery Company to enlist.