"Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be What thou art promised,"
while Antoine clung to the sideboard listening with mouth open and eyes rolling.
Later, in the living-room, Alice sang some old ballads. She was more adorable than ever at the piano. It was a happiness beyond any in my experience of women to watch her, to note the play of light upon her golden head, to yield to the spell of her voice. Ballads had never been sung before with the charm and feeling she put into them; and after ending with "Douglas, Douglas," she responded to my importunity with "Ben Bolt," and then dashed into a sparkling thing of Chopin's, played it brilliantly and rose, laughingly mocking my applause.
I left the house like a man over whom an enchantment has been spoken and was not pleased when Antoine blocked my path: "Pardon me, sir."
"Bother my pardon; what's troubling you now?" I demanded.
"It's nothing troubling me, sir; not particularly. If you give me time, I think I'll grow used to the poetry talk and playing at being queens. It's like children in a family I served once; an English family, most respectable. But in a widow, sir----"
"God knows we ought to be glad when grown-ups have the heart to play at being children and can get away with it as beautifully as those women do! What else is on your mind?"
"It's about Elsie, sir." I groaned at the mention of Flynn's German wife. "I'm sorry, sir; but I thought I should report it. It was a man who came to see her this afternoon. You was out for your walk, and Flynn had taken the ladies for a drive, so Elsie was alone at the garage. This person rode in on the grocer's truck from the village, which is how he got by the gate. As it happened, Pierre--he was a waiter at the Tyringham, a Swiss, who understands German--had gone into the garage for a nap; he's quite old, sir, and has his snooze every afternoon."
"He's entitled to it," I remarked; "he must be a thousand years old."
"From what he heard Pierre thought the man a spy, sir. He wanted Elsie to steal something from the house, it was a fan he wanted her to take most particular, and it was to be done soon, to-day if she could manage. It was for the love of the Fatherland that he wanted her to do it. Did you notice, sir, that Mrs. Bashford didn't have the fan to-night? Not that one she carried last night."