Nothing else we needed, except tobacco, and she brought us that. Very good tobacco it was, too.
Wearily the day passed, for though the room we were in was well-furnished, there were few books in it. We could, of course, have gone out of the room, out of the house probably, but our pretty little wardress had placed us on parole.
Whether or not the house was occupied, even whether there were servants in it, we could not tell. And the matter did not interest us much. What we should have liked to know was, why we had been brought there, still more, how Vera Thorold and Gladys Deroxe were faring in our absence. During the past weeks my life seemed to have been made up of a series of mysteries, each more puzzling than the last. I was distracted.
During the afternoon, while sitting together, very dejected, we suddenly caught the faint sound of a female voice singing.
Both of us listened. It was Vera’s voice, a sweet contralto, and she was singing, as though to herself, Verlaine’s “Manoline,” that sweet harmonious song—
“Les donneurs de sérénades,
Et les belles écouteuses,
Échangent des propos fades
Sous les ramures chanteuses.
“C’est Tircis et c’est Aminte
Et c’est l’éternel Clitandre
Et c’est Damis qui pour mainte cruelle
Fait maint vers tendre.”
The girl brought us tea presently, and, late in the evening, a plain dinner. The room was lit by petrol-gas. Each time she stayed with us a little while, and we were glad to have her company. She was, however, exceedingly discreet, refusing to make any statement which might throw light upon the reason of our confinement.
How strange it all was. Vera did not appear. We laughed at our own weakness and our own chivalry.
She showed us the bedroom where we were to sleep. Beautifully and expensively-furnished, it had two comfortable-looking beds, while a log-fire burnt cheerily in the grate—for the evening after the sunshine was singularly chilly in the mountains.
“If Vera does not come by mid-day to-morrow,” Faulkner said, as we prepared to get into bed, “I shall break my parole and set out to discover where she is. Our pretty friend is all very well, but my patience is exhausted. I’m not in need of a rest cure just at present.”