"Mon Dieu, ze mal der mer!" he had exclaimed--"Ze bouleversement of ze vagues! Ze choses terribles! Ze femmes sick!--zen men of ze coleur blieu! Ah, quel ravissement to be in ze land!"
Gigue's English was his own particular dialect--he disdained to try and read a single word of it, but from various sources he had picked up words which he fitted into his speech as best it suited him, with a result which was sometimes effective but more often startling. Maryllia was well accustomed to it, and understood what she called 'Gigue's vernacular'--but the ladies and gentlemen of her house- party were not so well instructed, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, whose knowledge of the French language was really quite extraordinary, immediately essayed the famous singing-master in his own tongue.
"Esker vous avez un moovais passage, Mo'sieur?" she demanded, with placid self-assurance--"Le mer etait bien mal?"
Gigue laughed, showing a row of very white strong teeth under his grizzled moustache, as he accepted a cup of tea from Cicely's hand, who gave him a meaning blink of her dark eyes as she demurely waited upon him.
"Ah, Madame! Je parle ze Inglis seulement in ze England! Oui, oui! Je mer etait comme l'huile, mais avec un so-so!" And he swayed his hands to and fro with a rocking movement--"Et le so-so faisaient les dames--ah, ciel!--so-so!"
And he placed his hand delicately to his head, with an inimitable turning aside gesture that caused a ripple of laughter. Maryllia's eyes sparkled with fun. She saw Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay surveying Gigue through her lorgnon with an air of polite criticism amounting to disdain,--she noted the men hanging back a little in the way that well-born Britishers do hang back from a foreigner who is 'only' a teacher of singing, especially if they cannot speak his language,-- and she began to enjoy herself. She knew that Gigue would say what he thought or what he wanted to say, reckless of censure, and she felt the refreshment and relief of having one, at least, in the group of persons around her, who was not in her Aunt Emily's service, and who uttered frankly his opinions regardless of results.
"Et maintenant,"--said Gigue, taking hold of Cicely's arm and drawing her close up to his knee--"Comment chante le rossignol? Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do! Chantez!"
All the members of the house-party stared,--they had taken scarcely any notice of Cicely Bourne, looking upon her as more or less beneath their notice--as a 'child picked up in Paris'--a 'waif and stray'--a 'fad of Maryllia Vancourt's'--and now here was this wild grey-haired man of renown bringing her into sudden prominent notice.