d there are many women who feel at moments that what attracts
some special creature, thing, of the so-called world without a soul,
attracts them too. Some men can whistle a woman as they would a dog,
can't they?"

"Perhaps."

"Yes, and some men can charm a woman as they could charm a serpent."

"I don't understand you, Claire."

"You don't choose to. The animal is in us all, hidden deftly by Nature,
the artful dodger of the scheme of creation, Desmond; and we know it
when the right tune is played to summon it from its slumber in the nest
of the human body. Only the right tune can waken it."

"The animal! But--"

"Or the reptile, perhaps. What does it matter? This was the right tune
for me. I lay there like a snake in the grass and it thrilled me! And
all the time the black man smiled and listened for the rustling at his
feet. You look black, Desmond! How absurd of you to be angry!"

And she closed her fingers over his hand till the frown died out of his
face.

"The tune seemed to draw me to the man. I understood just how he had
captured the serpent that lay hidden in his bosom. It had once lain in
ambush as I lay now, long ago perhaps, in the desert among the rocks, on
the sand, Desmond."

"Ah, the sand!" he said, remembering suddenly the strange feeling
Claire had described as coming upon her when she was trying to sleep.

"Yes. And he had drawn it from the sand to the oasis among the palms
where he stood playing, till he heard its rustling in the grass about
his feet, as it glided nearer to him, and nearer, and nearer, till at
last it reared up its body, and wound up him and round him, and laid its
flat head between his great hands. Yes, that was how it came."

"You fancy."

"I know. But I would not go. I determined that I would not, and I lay
perfectly still. But all the time I longed to go. I had an almost
irresistible passion for movement towards that tune. It seemed to me a
stream of music into which I yearned to plunge, and drown and die. And
it flowed up there at the man's lips! The longing increased as he piped
the tune, over and over and over again, almost under his breath. I was
sick with it, and it hurt me because I resisted it. And at last I knew
that resisting it would kill me. I must either go, or not go, and die.
There was no alternative. That music simply claimed me. It had the right
to. And if I denied that right I should cease. I did deny it."

She shuddered in the sun, then added, alm