The Woman with the Fan | Page 5

in Europe."
"You forget Paris."
"Paris!" said Sir Donald. "Paris is a suburb of London and New York. Paris is no longer the city of light, but the city of pornography and dressmakers."
"Well, I don't know exactly what pornography is--unless it's some new process for taking snapshots. But I do know what gowns are, and I love Paris. The Venice shops are failures and the Venice mosquitoes are successes, and I hate Venice."
An expression of lemon-coloured amazement appeared upon Sir Donald's face, and he glanced at Robin Pierce as if requesting the answer to a riddle. Robin looked rather as if he were enjoying himself, but the puzzled melancholy grew deeper on Sir Donald's face. With the air of a man determined to reassure his mind upon some matter, however, he spoke again.
"You visited the European capitals?" he said.
"Yes, all of them."
"Constantinople?"
"Terrible place! Dogs, dogs, nothing but dogs."
"Did you like Petersburg?"
"No, I couldn't bear it. I caught cold there."
"And that was why you hated it?"
"Yes. I went out one night with Fritz on the Neva to hear a woman in a boat singing--a peasant girl with high cheek-bones--and I caught a frightful chill."
"Ah!" said Sir Donald. "What was the song? I know a good many of the Northern peasant songs."
Suddenly Lady Holme got up, letting her gloves fall to the ground.
"I'll sing it to you," she said.
Robin Pierce touched her arm.
"For Heaven's sake not to Miss Filberte's accompaniment!"
"Very well. But come and sit where you can see me."
"I won't," he said with brusque obstinacy.
"Madman!" she answered. "Anyhow, you come, Sir Donald."
And she walked lightly away towards the piano, followed by Sir Donald, who walked lightly too, but uncertainly, on his thin, stick-like legs.
"What are you up to, Vi?" said Lord Holme, as she came near to him.
"I'm going to sing something for Sir Donald."
"Capital! Where's Miss Filberte?"
"Here I am!" piped a thin alto voice.
There was a rustle of skirts as the accompanist rose hastily from her chair.
"Sit down, please, Miss Filberte," said Lady Holme in a voice of ice.
Miss Filberte sat down like one who has been knocked on the head with a hammer, and Lady Holme went alone to the piano, turned the button that raised the music-stool, sat down too, holding herself very upright, and played some notes. For a moment, while she played, her face was so determined and pitiless that Mr. Bry, unaware that she was still thinking about Miss Filberte, murmured to Lady Cardington:
"Evidently we are in for a song about Jael with the butter in the lordly dish omitted."
Then an expression of sorrowful youth stole into Lady Holme's eyes, changed her mouth to softness and her cheeks to curving innocence. She leaned a little way from the piano towards her audience and sang, looking up into vacancy as if her world were hidden there. The song had the clear melancholy and the passion of a Northern night. It brought the stars out within that room and set purple distances before the eyes. Water swayed in it, but languidly, as water sways at night in calm weather, when the black spars of ships at anchor in sheltered harbours are motionless as fingers of skeletons pointing towards the moon. Mysterious lights lay round a silent shore. And in the wide air, on the wide waters, one woman was singing to herself of a sorrow that was deep as the grave, and that no one upon the earth knew of save she who sang. The song was very short. It had only two little verses. When it was over, Sir Donald, who had been watching the singer, returned to the sofa, where Robin Pierce was sitting with his eyes shut and, again striking his fingers against the palms of his hands, said: "I have heard that song at night on the Neva, and yet I never heard it before."
People began getting up to go away. It was past eleven o'clock. Sir Donald and Robin Pierce stood together, saying good-bye to Lady Holme. As she held out her hand to the former, she said:
"Oh, Sir Donald, you know Russia, don't you?"
"I do."
"Then I want you to tell me the name of that stuff they carry down the Neva in boats--the stuff that has such a horrible smell. That song always reminds me of it, and Fritz can't remember the name."
"Nor can I," said Sir Donald, rather abruptly. "Good-night, Lady Holme."
He walked out of the room, followed by Robin.

CHAPTER II
LORD HOLME'S house was in Cadogan Square. When Sir Donald had put on his coat in the hall he turned to Robin Pierce and said:
"Which way do you go?"
"To Half Moon Street," said Robin.
"We might walk, if you like. I am going the same way.
"Certainly."
They set out slowly. It was early in the year. Showers of rain had fallen during the day.