She used the Spanish name of the island with the soft roll in the throat that English people rarely acquire. He was prepared for it, standing with raised bow, looking past her iron-grey head to the music. She glanced back over her shoulder into his face with the cruel cat-like love of torture that some people possess. Far away in the distant wisdom of Providence it had been decreed that this woman should have no child less clever than herself to tease into hopelessness. The Spaniard laid his magic bow to the strings, leaving her to follow. He tucked the violin against his collar with a little caressing motion of his chin, and in a few moments he seemed to forget all else than the voice of the instrument. There are a few musicians who can give to a violin the power of speech. They can make the instrument tell some story--not a cheery tale, but rather like the story that dogs tell us sometimes--a story which seems to have a sequence of its own, and to be quite intelligible to its teller; but to us it is only comprehensible in part, like a tale that is told dramatically in a tongue unknown. The Count stood up and played with no fine frenzy, no rolling eyes, no swaying form; for such are the signs of a hopeless effort, hung out by the man who has heard the story and tries in vain to tell it himself. Even Agatha was outdone, for Luke drifted off into absent-mindedness, and after a little effort she left him to return at his own time. She listened to the music herself, but it did not seem to touch her. For sound ascends, and this was already above Agatha Ingham-Baker's head. The piece over, Mrs. Harrington selected another. "You did not go across to Mallorca?" she inquired, in a voice that did not reach the other room. "No," he answered, "I did not go across to Mallorca." He stepped back a pace to move a chair which was too near to him, and the movement made it impossible for her to continue the conversation without raising her voice. She countered at once by rising and laying the music aside. "I am too tired for more," she said. "You must ask Agatha to accompany you. She plays beautifully. I have it from her mother!" Mrs. Harrington stood for a moment looking into the other room. Luke and Agatha were talking together with some animation. "I have been very busy lately," she said conversationally. "Perhaps you have failed to notice that I have had this room redecorated?" He looked round the apartments with a smile, which somehow conveyed a colossal contempt. "Very charming," he said. "It was done by a good man and cost a round sum." She paused, looking at him with a mocking glance. "In fact, I am rather in need of money. My balance at the bank is not so large as I could wish." The Count's dark eyes rested on her face with the small gleam in their depths which has already been noted. "I am not good at money matters," he said. "But, so far as I recollect, you have already exceeded our--" "Possibly."