manners Schomberg had treated him to. He was considering these things in
his own fairly shrewd way. Something had happened; and he was loath to
go away to investigate, being restrained by a presentiment that somehow
enlightenment would come to him there. A poster of CONCERTS EVERY
EVENING, like those on the gate, but in a good state of preservation,
hung on the wall fronting him. He looked at it idly and was struck by
the fact--then not so very common--that it was a ladies' orchestra;
"Zangiacomo's eastern tour--eighteen performers." The poster stated
that they had had the honour of playing their select repertoire before
various colonial excellencies, also before pashas, sheiks, chiefs, H. H.
the Sultan of Mascate, etc., etc.

Davidson felt sorry for the eighteen lady-performers. He knew what that
sort of life was like, the sordid conditions and brutal incidents of
such tours led by such Zangiacomos who often were anything but musicians
by profession. While he was staring at the poster, a door somewhere at
his back opened, and a woman came in who was looked upon as Schomberg's
wife, no doubt with truth. As somebody remarked cynically once, she was
too unattractive to be anything else. The opinion that he treated her
abominably was based on her frightened expression. Davidson lifted his
hat to her. Mrs. Schomberg gave him an inclination of her sallow head
and incontinently sat down behind a sort of raised counter, facing the
door, with a mirror and rows of bottles at her back. Her hair was very
elaborately done with two ringlets on the left side of her scraggy neck;
her dress was of silk, and she had come on duty for the afternoon. For
some reason or other Schomberg exacted this from her, though she added
nothing to the fascinations of the place. She sat there in the smoke and
noise, like an enthroned idol, smiling stupidly over the billiards from
time to time, speaking to no one, and no one speaking to her. Schomberg
himself took no more interest in her than may be implied in a sudden