the party owing to a sudden attack of neuralgia. She asked him to tell
her all about it.

"Well," he said, "there were the usual people there, and there was some
music: some violin and piano playing, to which I didn't listen. After
that a man sang some Greek songs, and a curious thing happened to me.
When it began I felt my head swimming, and then I entirely lost account
of my surroundings. I forgot the party, the drawing-room and the people,
and I seemed to be sitting on the rocks of a cliff near a small bay; in
front of me was the sea: it was a kind of blue green, but far more blue
or at least of quite a different kind of blue than any I have seen. It
was transparent, and the sky above it was like a turquoise. Behind
me the cliff merged into a hill which was covered with red and white
flowers, as bright as a Persian carpet. On the beach in front, a tall
man was standing, wading in the water, little bright waves sparkling
round his feet. He was tall and dark, and he was spearing a lot of
little silver fish which were lying on the sand with a small wooden
trident; and somewhere behind me a voice was singing. I could not see
where it came from, but it was wonderfully soft and delicious, and a
lot of wild bees came swarming over the flowers, and a green lizard came
right up close to me, and the air was burning hot, and there was a
smell of thyme and mint in it. And then the song stopped, and I came
to myself, and I was back again in the drawing-room. Then when the man
began to sing again, I again lost consciousness, and I seemed to be in
a dark orchard on a breathless summer night. And somewhere near me there
was a low white house with an opening which might have been a window,
shrouded by creepers and growing things. And in it there was a faint
light. And from the house came the sound of a sad love-song; and
although I had never heard the song before I understood it, and it was
about the moon and the Pleiads having set, and the hour passing, and