beat their tomtoms more violently, and all things, Domini thought, were filled with a sense of climax. She felt as if the room, all the inanimate objects, and all the animate figures in it, were instruments of an orchestra, and as if each individual instrument was contributing to a slow and great, and irresistible crescendo. The stranger took his part with the rest, but against his will, and as if under some terrible compulsion. His face was scarlet now, and his shining eyes looked down on the dancer’s throat and breast with a mingling of eagerness and horror. Slowly she raised herself, turned, bent forwards quivering, and presented her face to him, while the women twittered once more in chorus. He still stared at her without moving. The hautboy players prolonged a wailing note, and the tomtoms gave forth a fierce and dull murmur almost like a death, roll. “She wants him to give her money,” Batouch whispered to Domini. “Why does not he give her money?” Evidently the stranger did not understand what was expected of him. The music changed again to a shrieking tune, the dancer drew back, did a few more steps, jerked her stomach with fury, stamped her feet on the floor. Then once more she shuddered slowly, half closed her eyes, glided close to the stranger, and falling down deliberately laid her head on his knees, while again the women twittered, and the long note of the hautboys went through the room like a scream of interrogation. Domini grew hot as she saw the look that came into the stranger’s face when the woman touched his knees. “Go and tell him it’s money she wants!” she whispered to Batouch. “Go and tell him!” Batouch got up, but at this moment a roguish Arab boy, who sat by the stranger, laughingly spoke to him, pointing to the woman. The stranger thrust his hand into his pocket, found a coin and, directed by the roguish youth, stuck it upon the dancer’s greasy forehead. At once she sprang to her feet. The women twittered. The music burst into a triumphant melody, and through the room there went a stir. Almost everyone in it moved simultaneously. One man raised his hand to his hood and settled it over his forehead. Another put his cigarette to his lips. Another picked up his coffeecup. A fourth, who was holding a flower, lifted it to his nose and smelt it. No one remained quite still. With the stranger’s action a strain had been removed, a mental tension abruptly loosened, a sense of care let free in the room. Domini felt it acutely. The last few minutes had been painful to her. She sighed with relief at the cessation of another’s agony. For the stranger had certainly--from shyness or whatever cause--been in agony while the dancer kept her head upon his knees. His angel had been in fear, perhaps, while his devil---- But Domini tried resolutely to turn her thoughts from the smiling face.