"Why did you not tell me that you were going to Spain?" she asked
somewhat tersely, under cover of her own chords.

"Had I known that it would interest you--" murmured De Lloseta,
tightening his bow. There was a singular gleam in his eye. The
gleam that one sees in the eye of a dog which has been thrashed,
telling the wise that one day the dog will turn.

"I am always interested," said the grey lady slowly, "in Spain--and
even in Mallorca."

She used the Spanish name of the island with the soft roll in the
throat that English people rarely acquire. He was prepared for it,
standing with raised bow, looking past her iron-grey head to the
music. She glanced back over her shoulder into his face with the
cruel cat-like love of torture that some people possess. Far away
in the distant wisdom of Providence it had been decreed that this
woman should have no child less clever than herself to tease into
hopelessness.

The Spaniard laid his magic bow to the strings, leaving her to
follow. He tucked the violin against his collar with a little
caressing motion of his chin, and in a few moments he seemed to
forget all else than the voice of the instrument. There are a few
musicians who can give to a violin the power of speech. They can
make the instrument tell some story--not a cheery tale, but rather
like the story that dogs tell us sometimes--a story which seems to
have a sequence of its own, and to be quite intelligible to its
teller; but to us it is only comprehensible in part, like a tale