à Paris," but the audience would not let her go and, after an exchange with her pianist, she chose to everyone's surprise a song which was a standard in every school repertoire beginning "For we are the jolly gay students." Arriving at "from Cadiz to gay Barcelona" her eyes seemed to follow the points of those cities on the map. When Vermillion and she had traveled that identical route they had sat in a café in Seville watching three solemn little girls eat ice cream while they crossed themselves fervently each time a white horse jogged into view. Now recalling the scene, he laughed out loud. The familiar laugh reached Simone and searching as she sang she found him and then Lucy.
It was apparent the pianist expected her to assent to more encores but she refused. She left the stage more quickly than she had entered, the dry rustle of her receding figure leaving in its trail a curious silence until the lights came up.
Hal spoke first. "She's divine. Do you think, Ray, she would sing with a harp accompaniment?"
"I doubt it," said Figente, "don't you agree, Vermillion?"
"She'd probably enjoy doing it some afternoon at your place—but it isn't a question of a harp versus piano. She couldn't manage without Jacques. He's more than pianist, he's also a friend upon whom she relies when tired and ill. He knows how to iron out difficulties with managers, and where to find her and get her to the theatre on time," Vermillion said, remembering Jacques's appeals that he deliver her to the theatre after the afternoons of their first months as lovers. Imbued with the image of that happy time he went to her.
"I could do all that, I would adore taking care of her," Hal pouted.
"Nonsense, you can't even take care of yourself," Figente said sharply.
"Maybe we ought to go along with Vermillion to see her," Lucy hinted.
"We will shortly, when I've finished my chartreuse," Figente countered, to keep her from being present at the reunion. He sipped slowly to thwart her and asked idly, "You haven't said, Boswell, what you think of Simone?"
It was unusual of Figente to address her directly and Vida glanced at him suspiciously, wondering whether he thought her too countrified to grasp the meaning of the songs, most of which she had understood owing to Simone's clear-cut delivery.
