Bill and Christopher fussed about with the lights, and tested the curtain and found that it had stuck, as curtains invariably do stick at all amateur theatricals, and Alfred Kendal said, “Why not have put it up properly in the first place?” and finally a step ladder was produced and Patch went up it and dealt adequately with the curtain. It all took time and created the right atmosphere of dramatic crisis and masterly presence of mind, and I hope that nobody except myself heard my neighbor, old Carey, asking what the devil they were all mucking about like that for. When the curtain did go up, officially, as Lady Annabel Bending might have said, the small stage showed a painted background of palm trees and blue sea, and Mrs. Harter standing in front of it in her Eastern dress. The straight lines of the long veil over her head and the circlet of coins across her forehead suited her very well, although the swarthiness of her coloring became almost startlingly evident. Her bare arms were hung with bracelets and she wore long drop earrings and a girdle of colored stones. The dress, Claire was at pains to assure us quietly, was entirely incorrect from the point of view of any known nationality--but it was very effective, all the same. Sallie, in almost similar clothes, and Amy Kendal, had had their faces stained with some brown pigment or other and their brows darkened, but Mary told me that Mrs. Harter had needed scarcely any make-up at all. She made no attempt at acting, but simply sang the ridiculous, mock-pathetic song on which Bill and Nancy had based their play, right through from beginning to end. I had forgotten how very good her voice was. At least, I supposed that I had. Since the day of the dress rehearsal I have sometimes wondered whether something new had come into it that had not been there when she sang “The Bluebells of Scotland” at the concert. Mrs. Harter looked straight in front of her while she was singing, her hands behind her back. The silence in the room had a very peculiar character; it was strangely intent. Even old Carey, who, after all, was by no means a fool, was perfectly motionless, and he, like everybody else, was looking at the woman on the stage. It was with a perfectly conscious effort that I turned my eyes away from Mrs. Harter and looked across to where Captain Patch stood. Bill was leaning against the wall, his back half turned to the stage, both hands thrust into his pockets. He seemed to be looking fixedly down at the floor, and he never once raised his eyes or turned round while the strong sound of Mrs. Harter’s singing vibrated in the room. There are six verses to the absurd song, and the air is repeated again and again. For days afterwards we all of us hummed it and sang it at intervals and execrated it for the persistent way in which it haunted us.