"It hurts me," said Sir Anthony, "to hear ancient Greek pronounced like
that. It is impossible to distinguish the words; besides which its wrong
to pronounce ancient Greek like modern Greek. Did you understand it?"

"No," said Ralph Enderby, "I did not. If it is modern Greek it was
certainly wrongly pronounced. I think the man must be singing some kind
of Asiatic dialect--unless he's a fraud."

Hard by there was another group discussing the music: Blythe, the
musical critic, and Lawson, who had the reputation of being a great
connoisseur.

"He's distinctly clever," Blythe was saying; "the songs are amusing
'pastiches' of Eastern folk song."

"Yes, I think he's clever," said Lawson, "but there's nothing original
in it, and besides, as I expect you noticed, two of the songs were gross
plagiarisms of De Bussy."

"Clever, but not original," said the lady to herself. "That's it." And
two hostesses who had overheard this conversation made up their minds
to get Margaritis for their parties, for they scented the fact that he
would ultimately be talked about. But most of the people did not discuss
the music at all.

As soon as the music had stopped, James Reddaway, who was a Member of
Parliament, left the house and went home. He was engrossed in politics,
and had little time at his disposal for anything else. As soon as he got
home he went up to his wife's bedroom; she had not been able to go to