“Well, your father certainly requires a rest after all the stress of this session.”
“Certainly he does,” declared Cicely. “Get round dear old Macalister, the doctor, to order him a rest and suggest a motor-tour as relaxation.”
“Besides, it always delights the public to know that a Cabinet Minister has gone away on holiday. It shows that he is overworked in the interests of the nation,” laughed Austin, who was nothing if not matter-of-fact.
At last, the dinner having ended, Sheila and Cicely rose and left the men, after which Grant sedately served them with coffee, two glasses of triple-sec, and cigarettes.
For ten minutes or so they gossiped, after which they rejoined the ladies in the long, old-fashioned drawing-room upstairs.
At Wheeler’s suggestion Sheila went to the piano and sang one of those gay chansons of the Paris cafés which she had so often sung at charity concerts. She had begun to learn French at eight years of age, and after her school at Eastbourne had been at Neuilly for three years before coming out.
She chose “Mon p’tit Poylt,” that gay song to which Lasaigues had written the music and which was at the moment being sung at half the café concerts in France. Playing her own accompaniment in almost the professional style of the entertainer, she began to sing the merry tuneful song, with its catchy refrain:
“On s’aimait, on n’était pas rosse.
On s’frôlait gentiment l’museau;
On rigolait comme des gosses.
On s’bécotait comm’ des moineaux.”
The trio listening laughed merrily, for she played and sang with all the verve of a Parisian chanteuse. Besides, both music and words were full of a gay abandon which was quite unexpected, and which charmed young Wingate, who knew that, though the Cabinet Minister held him in high esteem as a friend, yet to marry Sheila was entirely out of the question. He realised always that he was a mere designer of aeroplanes, “a glorified motor-mechanic” some jealous enemies had declared him to be. How could he ever aspire to the hand of “Monkton’s daughter?”
Level-headed and calm as he always was, he had from the first realised his position and retained it. Mr Monkton had admitted him to his friendship, and though always extremely polite and courteous to Sheila, he remained just a friend of her father.