stated
that they had had the honour of playing their select repertoire before
various colonial excellencies, also before pashas, sheiks, chiefs, H. H.
the Sultan of Mascate, etc., etc.

Davidson felt sorry for the eighteen lady-performers. He knew what that
sort of life was like, the sordid conditions and brutal incidents of
such tours led by such Zangiacomos who often were anything but musicians
by profession. While he was staring at the poster, a door somewhere at
his back opened, and a woman came in who was looked upon as Schomberg's
wife, no doubt with truth. As somebody remarked cynically once, she was
too unattractive to be anything else. The opinion that he treated her
abominably was based on her frightened expression. Davidson lifted his
hat to her. Mrs. Schomberg gave him an inclination of her sallow head
and incontinently sat down behind a sort of raised counter, facing the
door, with a mirror and rows of bottles at her back. Her hair was very
elaborately done with two ringlets on the left side of her scraggy neck;
her dress was of silk, and she had come on duty for the afternoon. For
some reason or other Schomberg exacted this from her, though she added
nothing to the fascinations of the place. She sat there in the smoke and
noise, like an enthroned idol, smiling stupidly over the billiards from
time to time, speaking to no one, and no one speaking to her. Schomberg
himself took no more interest in her than may be implied in a sudden
and totally unmotived scowl. Otherwise the very Chinamen ignored her
existence.

She had interrupted Davidson in his reflections. Being alone with her,
her silence and open-mouthed immobility made him uncomfortable. He was
easily sorry for people. It seemed rude not to take any notice of her.
He said, in allusion to the poster:

"Are you having these people in the house?"

She was so unused to being addressed by customers that at the sound of
his voice she jumped in her seat. Davidson was telling us afterwards
that she jumped exactly like a figure made of wood, without losing her
rigid immobility. She did not even move her eyes; but she answered him
freely, though her very lips seemed made of wood.

"They stayed here over a month. They are gone now. They played every
evening."

"Pretty good, were they?"

To this she said nothing; and as she kept on staring fixedly in front
of her, her silence disconcerted Davidson. It looked as if she had not
heard him--which was impossi