he juice
of some rare crops of grapes in that sunny island.

"We found ourselves in a little difficulty," said Ascher, "when you
fixed on to-night for your visit to us."

"I hope," I said, "that I haven't lit on an inconvenient evening. Had
you any other engagement?"

I was eating a very small piece of fish when he spoke to me, and was
trying to guess what the sauce was flavoured with. It occurred to
me suddenly that I might have broken in upon some sort of private
anniversary, a day which Ascher and his wife observed as one of
abstinence. There was, I could scarcely fail to notice it, a sense of
subdued melancholy about our proceedings.

"Oh, no," said Ascher, "but on Wednesdays we always have some music. I
was inclined to think that you might have preferred to spend the evening
talking, but my wife----"

He looked at Mrs. Ascher. I should very much have preferred talk to
music. It was chiefly in order to hear Ascher talk that I had accepted
the invitation.

"I know," said Mrs. Ascher, "that Sir James likes music."

She laid a strong emphasis on the word "know," and I felt that she was
paying me a nice compliment. What she said was true enough. I do like
music, some kinds of music. I had heard for the first time the night
before a song, then very popular, with a particularly attractive chorus.
It began to run through my head the moment Ascher mentioned music. "I
didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do it." I liked that song. I was
not sure that I should like the Aschers' music equally well. However, I
had no intention of contradicting Mrs. Ascher.

"I'm passionately fond of music," I said.

Ascher is a singularly guileless man. I cannot imagine how any one so
unsuspicious as he is can ever have succeeded as a financier, unless
indeed people are far honester about money than they are about anything
else. I do not think Mrs. Ascher believed that I am passionately fond of
music. Her husband did. The little shadow of anxiety which had rested on
his face cleared away. He became almost cheerful.

"To-night," he said, "we are going to hear some of the work of----"

He said a name, but I utterly failed to catch it. I had never heard it
before, and it sounded foreign, very foreign indeed, possibly Kurdish.

"------," said Ascher, "is one of the new Russian composers."

I heard the name that time, but I can make no attempt, phonetic or
other, to spell it. I suppose it can be spelled, but the letters must
be giv