II
Valerie had discovered the piano the day after her arrival, but it was not till two evenings after she had been to the coast that she had the leisure to try it. Nancy, her chambermaid, told her there was a sitting-room in front of the hotel.
“Nobody ever sits in it, miss,” she said.
It was a dreadful room, but like the dining-room it was to Valerie so ugly that it was funny. She went at once to the piano. It was a fairly good make and almost new, but it was out of tune and stiff for want of use. She wondered if Mac would mind her playing. As a compliment to him she began with Irish airs. Soon she heard the sounds of men’s voices below, beginning diffidently, and then ringing out till they filled the house with the roar of a strong masculine chorus. She gave them chantries and drinking songs, and found there was some response to all.
A little before nine o’clock a man of medium height and lazy grace, who was walking towards the hotel, paused to listen as lines from one of his favourite songs floated out to him. “Wrap me up in my old stable jacket, and say a poor buffer lies low, lies low.”
Dane Barrington had not heard that song for years. It gave a pleasant lift to his spirits which were sadly in need of elevation. He walked in and stood outside the bar door. Men were gathered there and half-way up the stairs.
“Who’s playing?” he asked someone.
“Dunno.”
The song ended and after a moment another tune began. An Englishman leaning against the post at the foot
