ision summoned up by his lit imagination.

The music very gradually quickened and grew louder, became steadily more
masculine, powerful, and fierce, till it sounded violent. The volume of
tone produced by the players astonished Mrs. Shiffney. The wild vagaries
of the flute seemed presently to be taking place in her brain. She drew
close to the window, put her hands on the bars. At her feet the
crouching Arabs never stirred. Behind her the cold wind came up from the
gorge and the great open country with the sound of the rushing water.

At that moment she had the thing that she believed she lived for--a
really keen sensation.

Suddenly, when the music had become almost intolerably exciting, when
the players seemed possessed, and noise and swiftness to rush together
like foes to the attack, the flute wavered, ran up to a height, cried
out like a thing martyred; the violin gave forth a thin scream; on the
derbouka the brown fingers of the player pattered with abrupt
feebleness; the guitar died away; the little brass discs shivered and
fell together. Another thin cry from the flute upon some unknown height,
and there was silence, while Claude wrote furiously, and the musicians
began to smoke.

[Illustration: "AT HER FEET THE CROUCHING ARABS NEVER STIRRED"--_Page
258_]

"Now I'll go in!" said Mrs. Shiffney to Amor.

He led the way and she followed. Claude glanced up, stared for a moment,
then sprang up.

"Mrs. Shiffney!"

His voice was almost stern.

"Mrs. Shiffney!" he repeated.

"Come to hear your music, for I know they are all playing only for you
and the opera."

Her strong, almost masculine hand lingered in his, and how could he let
it go without impoliteness?

"Aren't they?"

"I suppose so."

"It's wonderful the way they play. Said Hitani is an artist."

"You know his name?"

"And I must know him. May I stay a little?"

"Of course."

He looked round for a seat.

"No, the rug!" she said.

And, despite her bulk, she sank down with a swift ease that was almost
Oriental.

"Now please introduce me to Said Hitani!"

Till late in the night she stayed between the blue-green walls,
listening to the vehement voices and to the instruments, following all
the strange journeys of Said Hitani's flute. She was genuinely
fascinated, and this fact made her fascinating. As she had caught at Max
Elliot that day when he asked her, against his intention, to meet Claude
Heath, so now she caught at Claude Heath