Then he began to play—­lightly, sportively, frivolously, as befitted the situation.  The melodies of the day were intermingled with fragments of waltzes and ballads; all the ephemeral trifles that Paris hums over for eight days he blended together with brilliantly fluent execution.

The ladies uttered exclamations of admiration, and sang a few bars, keeping time with their feet.  The whole party followed the music with intense interest; the strange artist had hit their mood, and drawn them all with him from the beginning.  ‘Der liebe Doctor’ alone listened with the Sedan smile on his face; the pieces were too easy for him.

But soon there came something for the German too; he nodded now and then with a sort of appreciation.

It was a strange situation:  the piquant fragrance that filled the air, the pleasure-loving women—­these people, so free and unconstrained, all strangers to one another, hidden in the elegant, half-dark salon, each following his most secret thoughts—­thoughts born of the mysterious, muffled music; whilst the firelight rose and fell, and made everything that was golden glimmer in the darkness.

And there constantly came more for the doctor.  From time to time he turned and signed to De Silvis, as he heard the loved notes of ’unser Schumann,’ ‘unser Beethoven,’ or even of ‘unser famoser Richard.’

Meanwhile the stranger played on, steadily and without apparent effort, slightly inclined to the left, so as to give power to the bass.  It sounded as if he had twenty fingers, all of steel; he knew how to unite the multitudinous notes in a single powerful clang.  Without any pause to mark the transition from one melody to another, he riveted the interest of the company by constant new surprises, graceful allusions, and genial combinations, so that even the least musical among them were constrained to listen with eager attention.

But the character of the music imperceptibly changed.  The artist bent constantly over the instrument, inclining more to the left, and there was a strange unrest in the bass notes.  The Baptists from ‘The Prophet’ came with heavy step; a rider from ‘Damnation de Faust’ dashed up from far below, in a desperate, hobbling hell-gallop.

The rumbling grew stronger and stronger down in the depths, and Monsieur Anatole again began to feel the effects of the truffles.  Mademoiselle Adele half rose; the music would not let her lie in peace.

Here and there the firelight shone on a pair of black eyes staring at the artist.  He had lured them with him, and now they could not break loose; downward, ever downward, he led them—­downward, where was a dull and muffled murmur as of threatenings and plaints.

‘Er fuehrt eine famose linke Hand,’ said the doctor.  But De Silvis did not hear him; he sat, like the others, in breathless expectancy.

A dark, sickening dread went out from the music and spread itself over them all.  The artist’s left hand seemed to be tying a knot that would never be loosened, while his right made light little runs, like flames, up and down in the treble.  It sounded as if there was something uncanny brewing down in the cellar, whilst those above burnt torches and made merry.