e down to make a penthouse roof
above his jet black eyes.

"Hush--hush, please!" said Max Elliot, loudly. "'Sh--'sh--'sh! Monsieur
Rades is going to sing."

He bent to Rades.

"What is it? Monsieur Rades will sing _Le Moulin_, and _Le Retour de
Madame Blague_."

There was a ripple of applause, and Mrs. Shiffney hastily made her way
to a chair just in front of the piano, sat down on it, and gazed at
Rades, who turned and stared at her. Then, taking the cigarette from his
mouth, he sang _Le Moulin_ at her, leaning back, swaying and moving his
thick eyebrows. It was a sad song, full of autumnal atmosphere, a
delicate and sensual caress of sorrow. The handsome composer and the
lusty musical critic listened to it, watched the singer with a sort of
bland contempt. But when he threw away his cigarette and sang _Le Retour
de Madame Blague_, an outrageous trifle, full of biting esprit and
insolent wit, with a refrain like the hum of Paris by night, and a long
_bouche fermee_ effect at the end, even they joined in the laughter and
the applause, though with a certain reluctance, as if, in doing so, they
half feared to descend into a gutter where slippery and slimy things
made their abode.

Mrs. Shiffney got up and begged Ferdinand to sing again, mentioning
several songs by name. He shook his head, letting his apparently
boneless and square-nailed hands stray about over the piano all the time
she was speaking to him.

"_Non, non! Ce soir non! Impossible!_"

"Then sing _Petite Fille de Tombouctou_!" she exclaimed at last.

And before he could answer she turned round, smiling, and said: "_Petite
Fille de Tombouctou_."

There was a murmur of delight, and the impertinent girl with laurel
leaves in her dark hair suddenly looked exotic and full of languors. And
Charmian thought of the yacht. Had Mrs. Shiffney received Claude Heath's
answer yet? He was to make up his mind on Sunday. Rades was singing. His
accompaniment was almost terribly rhythmical, with a suggestion of the
little drums that the black men love. She saw fierce red flowers while
he sang, strange alleys with houses like huts, trees standing stiffly in
a blaze of heat, sand, limbs the color of slate. The sound of the
curious voice had become Eastern, the look in the insolent black eyes
Eastern. There seemed to be an odd intoxication in the face, pale,
impassive, and unrighteous, as if the effects of a drug were beginning
to steal upon the senses. And the white, s