The Moonlit Way Part 55

"Are you going out?"

"Just to the corner."

"Why don't you mail your letters down stairs?"

"I'll step around to the branch post office; they'll go quicker....

What was that air you were playing just now?"

"It is called 'Mea Culpa.'"

"Play it again."

She turned to the keys, recommenced the Celtic air, and sang in a clear, childish voice:

"Wake, little maid!

Red dawns the morn, The last stars fade, The day is born; Now the first lark wings high in air, And sings the Virgin's praises there!

"I am afraid To see the morn; I lie dismayed Beside the thorn.

Gazing at G.o.d with frightened eyes, Where larks are singing in the skies.

II

"Why, mourn, dear maid, Alone, forlorn, White and afraid Beside the thorn, With weeping eyes and sobbing breath And fair sweet face as pale as death?

"For love repayed By Mary's scorn, I weep, betrayed By one unborn!

Where can a poor la.s.s hide her head Till day be done and she be dead!"

The voice and playing lingered among the golden shadows, hushed to a whisper, ceased.

"Is it very old, that sad little song?" he asked at last.

"My mother wrote it.... There is the _Mea Culpa_, still, which ends it. Shall I sing it?"

"Go on," he nodded.

So she sang the _Mea Culpa_:

III

"Winds in the whinns Shall kene for me-- (_For Love is Love though men be men!_) Till all my sins Forgiven be-- (_Maxima culpa, Lord. Amen._) And Mary's grace my fault shall purge, While skylarks plead my cause above, And breezy rivers sing my dirge, Because I loved and died of Love.

(_I love, and die of Love!_) Amen."

When the soft cadence of the last notes was stilled, Dulcie turned once more toward him in the uncertain light.

"It's very lovely," he said, "and dreadfully triste. The air alone is enough to break your heart."

"My mother, when she wrote it, was unhappy, I imagine----" She swung slowly around to face the keys again.

"Do you know why she was so unhappy?"

"She fell in love," said the girl over her shoulder. "And it saddened her life, I think."

He sat motionless for a while. Dulcie did not turn again. Presently he rose and walked slowly out and down stairs, carrying his letters with him.

The stolid, mottled-faced German girl was on duty at the desk, and she favoured him with a sour look, as usual.

"There was a gen'l'man to see you," she mumbled.

"When?"

"Just now. I didn't know you was in."

"Well, why didn't you ring up the apartment and find out?" he demanded.

She gave him a sullen look:

"Here's his card," she said, shoving it across the desk.

Barres picked up the card. "Georges Renoux, Architect," he read.

"Hotel Astor" was pencilled in the corner.

Barres knit his brows, trying to evoke in his memory a physiognomy to fit a name which seemed hazily familiar.

"Did the gentleman leave any message?" he asked.

"No."

"Well, please don't make another mistake of this kind," he said.

She stared at him like a sulky sow, her little eyes red with malice.

"Where is Soane?" he inquired.

"Out."

"Where did he go?"

"I didn't ask him," she replied, with a slight sneer.

"I wish to see him," continued Barres patiently. "Could you tell me whether he was likely to go to Grogans?"

"What's Grogan's?"

"Grogan's Cafe on Third Avenue--where Soane hangs out," he managed to explain calmly. "You know where it is. You have called him up there."

"I don't know nothin' about it," she grunted, resuming the greasy novel she had been reading.

But when Barres, now thoroughly incensed, turned to leave, her small, pig-like eyes peeped slyly after him. And after he had disappeared through the corridor into the street she hastily unhooked the transmitter and called Grogan's.