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“They’ve put me off!” he said. “Or it was a mistake. I knew it was too good to be true.”

“It’s not that,” said Tina, “it’s Carlo!” Carlo was their little boy, who was nearly four years old.

“What?” said Margaritis.

Tina dragged him into their little sitting-room. “He is ill,” she said, “very ill, and I don’t know what’s the matter with him.”

Margaritis turned pale. “Let me see him,” he said. “We must get a doctor.”

“The doctor is coming: I went for him at once,” she said. And then they walked on tiptoe into the bedroom where Carlo was lying in his cot, tossing about, and evidently in a raging fever. Half an hour later the doctor came. Margaritis and Tina waited, silent and trembling with anxiety, while he examined the child. At last he came from the bedroom with a grave face. He said that the child was very seriously ill, but that if he got through the night he would very probably recover.

“I must send a telegram,” said Margaritis to Tina. “I cannot possibly go.” Tina squeezed his hand, and then with a brave smile she went back to the sick-room.

Margaritis took a telegraph form out of a shabby leather portfolio, sat down before the dining-table on which the cloth had been laid for tea (for the sitting-room was the dining-room also), and wrote out the telegram. And as he wrote his tears fell on the writing and smudged it. His grief overcame him, and he buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “What the Fates give with one hand,” he thought to himself, “they take away with another!” Then he heard himself, he knew not why, invoking the gods of Greece, the ancient gods of Olympus, to help him. And at that moment the whole room seemed to be filled with a strange light, and he saw the wonderful figure of a man with a shining face and eyes that seemed infinitely sad and at the same time infinitely luminous. The figure held a lyre, and said to him in Greek:–

“It is well. All will be well. I will take your place at the concert!”

When the vision had vanished, the half written telegram on his table had disappeared also.

* * * * *

The party at A—- House that night was brilliant rather than large. In one of the drawing-rooms there was a piano, in front of which were six or seven rows of gilt chairs. The other rooms were filled with shifting groups of beautiful women, and men wearing orders and medals. There was a continuous buzz of conversation, except in the room where the music was going on; and even there in the background there was a subdued whispering. The violinist was playing some elaborate nothings, and displaying astounding facility, but the audience did not seem to be much interested, for when he stopped, after some faint applause, conversation broke loose like a torrent.

“I do hope,” said some one to the lady next him, “that the music will be over soon. One gets wedged in here, one doesn’t dare move, and one had to put up with having one’s conversation spoilt and interrupted.”

“It’s an extraordinary thing,” answered the lady, “that nobody dares give a party in London without some kind of entertainment. It is such a mistake!”

At that moment the fourth and last item on the programme began, which was called “Greek Songs by Heraclius Themistocles Margaritis.”

“He certainly looks like a Greek,” said the lady who had been talking; “in fact if his hair was cut he would be quite good-looking.”

“It’s not my idea of a Greek,” whispered her neighbour. “He is too fair. I thought Greeks were dark.”

“Hush!” said the lady, and the first song began. It was a strange thread of sound that came upon the ears of the listeners, rather high and piercing, and the accompaniment (Margaritis accompanied himself) was twanging and monotonous like the sound of an Indian tom-tom. The same phrase was repeated two or three times over, the melody seemed to consist of only a very few notes, and to come over and over again with extraordinary persistence. Then the music rose into a high shrill call and ended abruptly.