Sir Hector, who wished to be the cynosure of the promenaders floating with the opposite current, kept on the extreme edge of the downward stream, so that Jasmine, with two feet less height than her uncle and no title, found it difficult to make headway, so difficult indeed that in trying to keep up with him she got too much to the left and was swept back by the contrary stream, in which, though she managed to keep her season ticket, she lost herself. Several times during this promenade eternal as the winds of hell, she caught sight of her uncle's neck lifted above the swirl like a cormorant's, and once she managed to get to the outside of the stream and actually to pluck at his sleeve as he went by in the opposite direction; but her voice was drowned by the music, and he did not notice her. She was beginning to feel tired of walking round and round like this, and at last, finding herself working across to the right of the current, she struggled ashore, or in other words went into the concert room. The concert room of the Spa looked like a huge conservatory full of dead vegetation. The hundreds of chairs stacked one upon another in rows seemed a brake of withered canes; the music-stands on the platform resembled the dried-up stalks of small shrubs; while the few palms and foliage plants that preserved their greenery only served to enhance the deadness all round, and were themselves streaked with decay. Outside, the gay throng passing and repassing like fish added a final touch to the desolation of the interior. Two small boys, with backward uneasy glances, were creeping furtively through the maze of chairs. Jasmine thought that they like herself had been overcome by the mystery haunting this light and arid interior, until a dull boom from the direction of the platform, followed by the screech of hurriedly moved chairs and the clatter of frightened feet made her realize that their cautious advance had been the preliminary to a daring attempt to bang, if only once, the big drum muffled in baize. No sooner had the boys successfully escaped than Jasmine was seized with a strong desire to bang the drum for herself, to bang it, however, much more loudly than those boys had banged it, to raise the drumstick high above her and bring it down upon the drum as a smith brings his hammer down upon the anvil. The longer she sat here, the harder she found it to keep away from the platform. Finally the temptation became too strong to be resisted; she snatched the baize cover from the instrument, seized the drumstick, and brought it down with a crash. "I wish I could do that at Strathspey House," she sighed; and then, hearing a voice at the back of the hall, she turned round to see an indignant man in a green baize apron looking at her over folded arms. "Here! you mustn't do that," he was protesting. "I'm sorry," said Jasmine. "I simply couldn't help it."