al instrument was contributing
to a slow and great, and irresistible crescendo. The stranger took his
part with the rest, but against his will, and as if under some terrible
compulsion.

His face was scarlet now, and his shining eyes looked down on the
dancer's throat and breast with a mingling of eagerness and horror.
Slowly she raised herself, turned, bent forwards quivering, and
presented her face to him, while the women twittered once more in
chorus. He still stared at her without moving. The hautboy players
prolonged a wailing note, and the tomtoms gave forth a fierce and dull
murmur almost like a death, roll.

"She wants him to give her money," Batouch whispered to Domini. "Why
does not he give her money?"

Evidently the stranger did not understand what was expected of him. The
music changed again to a shrieking tune, the dancer drew back, did a few
more steps, jerked her stomach with fury, stamped her feet on the floor.
Then once more she shuddered slowly, half closed her eyes, glided close
to the stranger, and falling down deliberately laid her head on his
knees, while again the women twittered, and the long note of the
hautboys went through the room like a scream of interrogation.

Domini grew hot as she saw the look that came into the stranger's face
when the woman touched his knees.

"Go and tell him it's money she wants!" she whispered to Batouch. "Go
and tell him!"

Batouch got up, but at this moment a roguish Arab boy, who sat by the
stranger, laughingly spoke to him, pointing to the woman. The stranger
thrust his hand into his pocket, found a coin and, directed by the
roguish youth, stuck it upon the dancer's greasy forehead. At once
she sprang to her feet. The women twittered. The music burst into
a triumphant melody, and through the room there went a stir. Almost
everyone in it moved simultaneously. One man raised his hand to his hood
and settled it over his forehead. Another put his cigarette to his lips.
Another picked up his coffeecup. A fourth, who was holding a flower,
lifted it to his nose and smelt it. No one remained quite still. With
the stranger's action a strain had been removed, a mental tension
abruptly loosened, a sense of care let free in the room. Domini felt it
acutely. The last few minutes had been painful to her. She sighed
with relief at the cessation of another's agony. For the stranger had
certainly--from shyness or whatever cause--been in agony while the
dancer kept her he