come into his face.

"Dead-sea fruit!" he muttered.

But he bent, wrote something quickly, signed his name, blotted and shut
the book. Hermione had not been able to see the sentence he had written.
She did not ask what it was.

There was a noise of rather shuffling footsteps on the paved floor of
the room. Three musicians had come in. They were shabbily dressed. One
was very short, stout, and quite blind, with a gaping mouth that had an
odd resemblance to an elephant's mouth when it lifts its trunk and shows
its rolling tongue. He smiled perpetually. The other two were thin and
dreary, middle-aged, and hopeless-looking. They stood not far from
the table and began to play on guitars, putting wrong harmonies to a
well-known Neapolitan tune, whose name Artois could not recall.

"What a pity it is they never put the right bass!" said Hermione.

"Yes. One would suppose they would hit it sometimes by mistake. But they
seldom do."

Except for the thin and uncertain music the restaurant was almost
silent. The people who had just come in were sitting down far away
at the end of the long room. Hermione and Artois were the only other
visitors, now that Vere and the Marchesino were outside on the terrace.

"Famous though it is, Frisio's does not draw the crowd," said Hermione.

To-night she found it oddly difficult to talk to her friend, although
she had refused the Marchesino's invitation on purpose to do so.

"Perhaps people were afraid of the storm."

"Well, but it doesn't come."

"It is close," he said. "Don't you feel it? I do."

His voice was heavy with melancholy, and made her feel sad, even
apprehensive.

"Where are the stars?" he added.

She followed his example and leaned out of the great window. Not a star
was visible in all the sky.

"You are right. It is coming. I feel it now. The sea is like lead, and
the sky, too. There is no sense of freedom to-night, no out-of-doors
feeling. And the water is horribly calm."

As they both leaned out they heard, away to the left at some distance,
the voices of Vere and the Marchesino.

"I stayed because I thought--I fancied all the chatter was getting a
little on your nerves, Emile," Hermione said now. "They are so absurdly
young, both of them. Wasn't it so?"

"Am I so old that youth should get upon my nerves?" he returned, with a
creeping irritation, which, however, he tried to keep out of his voice.

"No. But of course we can hardly enjoy nonsense that might