With me she was always perfectly affable, knowing the strong personal friendship existing between the Stanchesters and my own family. Hence she treated me on an equality with herself and during the meal laughed and chatted merrily about the people she and her niece had recently met.
At last, however, dinner was over, and we all three retired to the private sitting-room, where Lolita at my desire played Tito Mattei’s “White Moon” serenade and the “Cavatine” from Faust.
“Won’t you sing us something?” I urged presently when she was about to turn from the piano. At first she tried to excuse herself, but seeing that I was anxious to hear her voice she turned again, and in her clear contralto sang an old French serenade:—
“Une reine est maitresse de mon coeur;
Elle reigne part tout.
Car ses beaux yeux.
Sont les deux sceptres de l’amour;
Et quand vers moi ils tournent leurs brillantes flammes.
Le feu d’amour s’empare de tout mon âme.
“Heureux si j’étois souverain.
De tout le ciel
Peut être elle,
Ne voudras pas que j’aime en vain;
Mais comme je suis en silence je soupire;
J’ose bien aimer, mais je n’ose pas le dire.”
Her gaze fell upon me as she sang, and surely she addressed those final words to me—
“But as I am, in silence I must feel
Love’s sacred flame, and yet that flame conceal.”
I sat gazing upon her beauty entranced. In that sweet clear voice was a touch of pathos such as I have never before heard, and I knew that she was suffering, like myself. In those moments I had wandered in the mazes of ecstatic bliss. All the world save her was lost to me. By the look in her beautiful eyes I was again launched on the wide sea of bliss; love was the pilot of my soul and the bright beam of her love-look illuminated my track, as the soft zephyrs of love filled my warm fancy, leading me to the shores of matchless beauty.
The song had ended, and with it my vision vanished. She closed the piano, rose and crossed the room to look out of the window upon the long line of lights in Princes Street with the castle frowning opposite in the starless gloom.
Her action was a natural one, yet it was succeeded by one which caused me some surprise. She had been standing for a moment at the open window, as though enjoying the cool air, then suddenly she removed a great bowl of bright dahlias that gave a welcome touch of colour to the room from a sideboard, and placed them upon the small table in the window.
Afterwards she returned to us without, however, drawing down the blind.