few bars, Audrey gave a start, fortunately
not a physical start, and she blushed also. Musa sternly winked at her.
Frenchmen do not make a practice of winking, but he had learnt the
accomplishment for fun from Miss Thompkins in Paris. The wink caused
Audrey surreptitiously to observe Mr. and Mrs. Spatt. It was no relief to
her to perceive that these two were listening to Debussy's Toccata for solo
violin with the trained and appreciative attention of people who had heard
it often before in the various capitals of Europe, who knew it by heart,
and who knew at just what passages to raise the head, to give a nod of
recognition or a gesture of ecstasy. The bare room was filled with the
sound of Musa's fiddle and with the high musical culture of Mr. and Mrs.
Spatt. When the piece was over they clapped discreetly, and looked with
soft intensity at Audrey, as if murmuring: "You, too, are a cultured
cosmopolitan. You share our emotion." And across the face of Mrs. Spatt
spread a glow triumphant, for Musa now positively had played for the first
time in England in her drawing-room, and she foresaw hundreds of occasions
on which she could refer to the matter with a fitting air of casualness.
The glow triumphant, however, paled somewhat as she felt upon herself the
eye of Mr. Ziegler.

"Where is Siegfried, Alroy?" she demanded, after having thanked Musa. "I
wouldn't have had him miss that Debussy for anything, but I hadn't noticed
that he was gone. He adores Debussy."

"I think it is like bad Bach," Mr. Ziegler put in suddenly. Then he raised
his glass and imbibed a good portion of the beer specially obtained and
provided for him by his hostess and admirer, Mrs. Spatt.

"Do you _really_?" murmured Mrs. Spatt, with deprecation.

"There's something in the comparison," Mr. Spatt admitted thoughtfully.

"Why not like good Bach?" Musa asked, glaring in a very strange manner at
Mr. Ziegler.

"Bosh!" ejaculated Mr. Ziegler with a most notable imperturbability. "Only
Bach himself could com-pose good Bach."

Musa's breathing could be heard across the drawing-room.

"_Eh bien!_" said Musa. "Now I will play for you Debussy's Toccata. I was
not playing it before. I was playing the Chaconne of Bach, the most famous
composition for the violin in the world."

He did not embroider the statement. He left it in its nakedness. Nor did he
permit anybody else to embroider it. Before a word of any kind could be
uttered he had begun to play aga