A sigh was heard, a half-scream from one of the ladies, who felt ill; but no one heeded it.  The artist had now got quite down into the bass, and his tireless fingers whirled the notes together, so that a cold shudder crept down the backs of all.

But into that threatening, growling sound far below there began to come an upward movement.  The notes ran into, over, past each other—­upward, always upward, but without making any way.  There was a wild struggle to get up, as it were a multitude of small, dark figures scratching and tearing; a mad eagerness, a feverish haste; a scrambling, a seizing with hands and teeth; kicks, curses, shrieks, prayers—­and all the while the artist’s hands glided upward so slowly, so painfully slowly.

‘Anatole,’ whispered Adele, pale as death, ‘he is playing Poverty.’

‘Oh, these truffles!’ groaned Anatole, holding his stomach.

All at once the room was lit up.  Two servants with lamps and candelabra appeared in the portiere; and at the same moment the stranger finished by bringing down his fingers of steel with all his might in a dissonance, so startling, so unearthly, that the whole party sprang up.

‘Out with the lamps!’ shouted De Silvis.

‘No, no!’ shrieked Adele; ’I dare not be in the dark.  Oh, that dreadful man!’

Who was it?  Yes, who was it?  They involuntarily crowded round the host, and no one noticed the stranger slip out behind the servants.

De Silvis tried to laugh.  ’I think it was the devil himself.  Come, let us go to the opera.’

‘To the opera!  Not at any price!’ exclaimed Louison.  ’I will hear no music for a fortnight.’

‘Oh, those truffles!’ moaned Anatole.

The party broke up.  They had all suddenly realized that they were strangers in a strange place, and each one wished to slip quietly home.

As the journalist conducted Mademoiselle Louison to her carriage, he said:  ’Yes, this is the consequence of letting one’s self be persuaded to dine with these semi-savages.  One is never sure of the company he will meet.’

‘Ah, how true!  He quite spoiled my good spirits,’ said Louison mournfully, turning her swimming eyes upon her companion.  ’Will you accompany me to La Trinite?  There is a low mass at twelve o’clock.’

The journalist bowed, and got into the carriage with her.

But as Mademoiselle Adele and Monsieur Anatole drove past the English dispensary in the Rue de la Paix, he stopped the driver, and said pleadingly to his fair companion:  ’I really think I must get out and get something for those truffles.  You will excuse me, won’t you?  That music, you know.’

’Don’t mind me, my friend.  Speaking candidly, I don’t think either of us is specially lively this evening.  Good-night.’

She leant back in the carriage, relieved at finding herself alone; and this light, frivolous creature cried as if she had been whipped whilst she drove homeward.