usic-halls.

In five minutes Clara's uneasiness had vanished, and she was listening
to the music with a dreamy languor quite foreign to her usual
composure. Her mind was filled with the fantastic splendour of the
sunset; the fresh salt air had acted like a drug; and the sounds
breathed into the reeds made her nerves vibrate like strings. Strange,
lawless thoughts floated in her mind. The world was meant for love,
and passionate sadness, and breaking hearts that healed at the glance
of an eye. And as her ear followed the tune, her eyes were drawn with
an irresistible movement to the musician. She found him staring at her
with a magnetic look in his eyes.

He was no longer ridiculous. The large head, wedged beneath the
shoulders, the projecting hump, monstrous and inhuman, and the music
breathed into the reeds set him apart as a sinister, uncanny being.
She frowned in an effort to think what the strange figure reminded her
of, and suddenly she remembered. It was the god Pan, the goat-footed
lord of rivers and woods, sitting beside her, who blew into his pipes
and stirred the blood of men and women to frenzies of joy and fear.
There was fear and exultation in her heart. A pagan voluptuousness
spread through her limbs. Jonah paused for a moment, and then broke
into the pick of his repertory. And Clara listened, hypnotized by the
sounds, her brain mechanically fitting the words to the tune:

Come to me, sweet Marie, sweet Marie, come to me!
Not because your face is fair, love, to see;
But your soul, so pure and sweet,
Makes my happiness complete,
Makes me falter at your feet, sweet Marie.

The vulgar, insipid words rang as plainly in her ears as if a voice
were singing them. Jonah stopped playing, and stared at her with a
curious glitter in his eyes. She felt, in a dazed, dreamy fashion,
that this was the hunchback's declaration of love. The hurdy-gurdy
tune and the unsung words had acted like a spell. For a space of
seconds she gazed with a fixed look at Jonah, waiting for him to move
or speak. She seemed to be slipping down a precipice without the power
or desire to resist. Then, like a fit of giddiness, the sensation
passed. She stumbled to her feet and ran wildly down the rocky path to
the wharf where the ferry-boat, glittering with electric lights, like a
gigantic firefly, was waiting at the jetty.

CHAPTER 20

MRS PARTRIDGE MINDS THE SHOP

Chook caught the last tram home, and