The scene fixed my attention very steadily, for I was aware of something deliberate and calculated on Moleson’s part. The thing was well considered in his mind, intention only half concealed. It was Egypt he interpreted by sound, expressing what in him was true, then observing its effect, as he led us cleverly towards--the past. Beginning with the present, he played persuasively, with penetration, with insistent meaning too. He had that touch which conjured up real atmosphere, and, at first, that atmosphere termed modern. He rendered vividly the note of London, passing from the jingles of musical comedy, nervous rag-times and sensuous Tango dances, into the higher strains of concert rooms and ‘cultured’ circles. Yet not too abruptly. Most dexterously he shifted the level, and with it our emotion. I recognised, as in a parody, various ultra-modern thrills: the tumult of Strauss, the pagan sweetness of primitive Debussy, the weirdness and ecstasy of metaphysical Scriabin. The composite note of To-day in both extremes, he brought into this private sitting-room of the desert hotel, while George Isley, listening keenly, fidgeted in his chair. ‘“Après-midi d’un Faune,”’ said Moleson dreamily, answering the question as to what he played. ‘Debussy’s, you know. And the thing before it was from “Til Eulenspiegel”--Strauss, of course.’ He drawled, swaying slowly with the rhythm, and leaving pauses between the words. His attention was not wholly on his listener, and in the voice was a quality that increased my uneasy apprehension. I felt distress for Isley somewhere. Something, it seemed, was coming; Moleson brought it. Unconsciously in his walk, it now appeared consciously in his music; and it came from what was underground in him. A charm, a subtle change, stole oddly over the room. It stole over my heart as well. Some power of estimating left me, as though my mind were slipping backwards and losing familiar, common standards. ‘The true modern note in it, isn’t there?’ he drawled; ‘cleverness, I think--intellectual--surface ingenuity--no depth or permanence--just the sensational brilliance of To-day.’ He turned and stared at me fixedly an instant. ‘Nothing _everlasting_,’ he added impressively. ‘It tells everything it knows--because it’s small enough----’