His Hour

They were followed by about ten dark, beetle-browed males, who carried

guitars.

These were the famous Bohemians! Their appearance at all events was

disillusioning enough. Tamara's disappointment was immense.

But presently when they began to sing she realized that there was

something--something in their music--even though it was of an intense

unrest.

She found it was the custom for them to sing a weird chant song on the

name of each guest, and every one must drink to this guest's health,

all standing, and quaffing the glasses of champagne down at one

draught.

That they all remained sober at the end of the evening seemed to do

great credit to their heads, for Tamara, completely unaccustomed to the

smoke and the warm room, feared even to sip at her glass.

The toasting over, every one sat down, Prince Milaslávski and a Pole

being the only two in front of the table, and they with immense spirit

chaffed the company, and called the tunes.

The music was of the most wild, a queer metallic sound, and the airs

were full of unexpected harmonies and nerve-racking chords. It fired

the sense, in spite of the hideous singers.

They all sat there with perfectly immovable faces and entirely still

hands,--singing without gesticulations what were evidently passionate

love-songs! Nothing could have been more incongruous or grotesque!

But the fascination of it grew and grew. Every one of their ugly faces

remained printed on Tamara's brain. Long afterward she would see them

in dreams.

How little we yet know of the force of sounds! How little we know of

any of the great currents which affect the world and human life!

And music above any other art stirs the sense. Probably the Greek myth

of Orpheus and his lute was not a myth after all; perhaps Orpheus had

mastered the occult knowledge of this great power. Surely it would be

worth some learned scientist's while to investigate from a

psychological point of view how it is, and why it is, that certain

chords cause certain emotions, and give base or elevating visions to

human souls.

The music of these gipsies was of the devil, it seemed to Tamara, and

she was not surprised at the wild look in Prince Milaslávski's eyes,

for she herself--she, well brought up, conventionally crushed English

Tamara,--felt a strange quickening of the pulse.

After an hour or so of this music, two of the younger Bohemian women

began to dance, not in the least with the movements that had shocked

Mrs. Hardcastle in the Alexandrian troupe on the ship, but a foolish

valsing, while the shoulders rose and fell and quivered like the

flapping wings of some bird. The shoulders seemed the talented part,

not the body or hips.