Eleanor leans forward with her chin between her hands, gazing at him intently.
"Anything you like."
"This road," says Captain Stevenson, leaning over the verandah, "is the road to Mandalay. It seems impregnated with the spirit of Rudyard Kipling."
"That shall be the song," says Major Short.
Captain Stevenson half sits on the balustrade, with the terrier beside him gazing up wistfully into his eyes. Eleanor retains her intent attitude, as a voice more beautiful and mellow than any she has ever heard swells out on the hot air.
Eleanor is moved almost to tears by the magnetism of that wonderful sound, thrilling her very being, for she is highly emotional.
The tune is soft, and the well-known words to the familiar melody take pathos from their rough uncultured sentiment.
She remembers once hearing a man recite the words at a musical "At home."
People had cried then; they knew not why, save that his elocution was exquisite, and he breathed it in an undertone:
By the old Moulmein Pajoda lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burmah girl a-setting, and I know she thinks o' me,
For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldiers, come you back to Mandalay."