hellish beauty indescribable,
the wailing of a Stradivarius violin crept to my ears from the room
above. Slowly--slowly the music began, and my soul rose up in revolt.

"Listen!" repeated the voice. "Listen! It is 'The Black Mass'!"

THE DANCE OF THE VEILS

I

THE HOUSE OF THE AGAPOULOS

Hassan came in and began very deliberately to light the four lamps.
He muttered to himself and often smiled in the childish manner which
characterizes some Egyptians. Hassan wore a red cap, and a white robe
confined at the waist by a red sash. On his brown feet he wore loose
slippers, also of red. He had good features and made a very picturesque
figure moving slowly about his work.

As he lighted lamp after lamp and soft illumination crept about the big
room, because of the heavy shadows created the place seemed to become
mysteriously enlarged. That it was an Eastern apartment cunningly
devised to appeal to the Western eye, one familiar with Arab households
must have seen at once. It was a traditional Oriental interior, a
stage setting rather than the nondescript and generally uninteresting
environment of the modern Egyptian at home.

Brightly coloured divans there were and many silken cushions of strange
pattern and design. The hanging lamps were of perforated brass with
little coloured glass panels. In carved wooden cabinets stood beautiful
porcelain jars, trays, and vessels of silver and copper ware. Rich
carpets were spread about the floor, and the draperies were elegant and
costly, while two deep windows projecting over the court represented the
best period of Arab architecture. Their intricate carven woodwork had
once adorned the palace of a Grand Wazir. Agapoulos had bought them in
Cairo and had had them fitted to his house in Chinatown. A smaller brass
lamp of very delicate workmanship was suspended in each of the recesses.

As Hassan, having lighted the four larger lanterns, was proceeding
leisurely to light the first of the smaller ones, draperies before a
door at the east end of the room were parted and Agapoulos came in.
Agapoulos was a short but portly Greek whom the careless observer might
easily have mistaken for a Jew. He had much of the appearance of a bank
manager, having the manners of one used to making himself agreeable,
but also possessing the money-eye and that comprehensive glance which
belongs to the successful man of commerce.

Standing in the centre of the place he brushed his