queer growth of prickly-pear and ragged, stunted
palm-trees--far below. She crossed herself, turning hurriedly away.
Yet, for an instant, Death, triumphant, hideous, inevitable, and all
the spiritual terror and physical disgust of it, grinned at her, its
fleshless face, as it seemed, close against her own. And alongside
Death--by some malign association of ideas and ugly antic of
profanity--she saw the _bel tete de Jesu_ of M. Paul Destournelle as
she had seen it this morning, he looking back, hat in hand, as he
plunged down the break-neck, Neapolitan side-street, with that impish,
bleating, goatlike laugh.

By the time the dinner-hour drew near she found her outlook in radical
need of reconstruction, and to that end bade Zelie dress her in the
crocus-yellow brocade, reserved for some emergency such as the present.
It was a gown, surely, to restore self-confidence and induce
self-respect! Fashioned fancifully, according to a picturesque,
seventeenth-century, Venetian model, the full sleeves and the
long-waisted bodice of it--this cut low, generously displaying her
shoulders and swell of her bosom--were draped with superb _guipure de
Flandres a brides frisees_ and strings of seed pearls. All trace of
ascetic simplicity had very certainly departed. Helen was
resplendent--strings of seed pearls twisted in her honey-coloured hair,
a clear red in her cheeks and hard brilliance in her eyes, bred of
eager jealous excitement. She had, indeed, reached a stage of feeling
in which the sight of Richard Calmady, the fact of his presence, worked
upon her to the extent of dangerous emotion. And now this statement of
his, and the question following it, caused the flame of the inward
fires tormenting her to leap high.

"Ah! Morabita!" she exclaimed. "What an age it is since I have heard
her sing, or thought about her! How is her voice lasting, Richard?"

"I really don't know," he answered, "and that is why I am rather
curious to hear her. There was literally nothing but a voice in her
case--no dramatic sense, nothing in the way of intelligence to fall
back on. On that account it interested me to watch her. She and her
voice had no essential relation to one another. Her talent was stuck
into her, as you might stick a pin into a cushion. She produced
glorious effects without a notion how she produced them, and gave
expression--and perfectly just expression--to emotions she had never
dreamed of. At the best of times singers are a feebl