rm into the body
of Schomberg's "concert-hall." They dispersed themselves all over the
place. The male creature with the hooked nose and purple-black beard
disappeared somewhere. This was the interval during which, as the astute
Schomberg had stipulated, the members of the orchestra were encouraged
to favour the members of the audience with their company--that is, such
members as seemed inclined to fraternize with the arts in a familiar and
generous manner; the symbol of familiarity and generosity consisting in
offers of refreshment.

The procedure struck Heyst as highly incorrect. However, the impropriety
of Schomberg's ingenious scheme was defeated by the circumstance that
most of the women were no longer young, and that none of them had ever
been beautiful. Their more or less worn cheeks were slightly rouged, but
apart from that fact, which might have been simply a matter of routine,
they did not seem to take the success of the scheme unduly to heart.
The impulse to fraternize with the arts being obviously weak in the
audience, some of the musicians sat down listlessly at unoccupied
tables, while others went on perambulating the central passage: arm in
arm, glad enough, no doubt, to stretch their legs while resting their
arms. Their crimson sashes gave a factitious touch of gaiety to the
smoky atmosphere of the concert-hall; and Heyst felt a sudden pity for
these beings, exploited, hopeless, devoid of charm and grace, whose fate
of cheerless dependence invested their coarse and joyless features with
a touch of pathos.

Heyst was temperamentally sympathetic. To have them passing and
repassing close to his little table was painful to him. He was preparing
to rise and go out when he noticed that two white muslin dresses and
crimson sashes had not yet left the platform. One of these dresses
concealed the raw-boned frame of the woman with the bad-tempered curve
to her nostrils. She was no less a personage than Mrs. Zangiacomo. She
had left the piano, and, with her back to the hall, was preparing the
parts for the second half of the concert, with a brusque, impatient
action of her ugly elbow. This task done, she turned, and, perceiving
the other white muslin dress motionless on a chair in the second row,
she strode towards it between the music-stands with an aggressive and
masterful gait. On the lap of that dress there lay, unclasped and idle,
a pair of small hands, not very white, attached to well-formed arms.
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