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At this point one of the musicians, a fair man with pale eyes who played the tarah, interposed a remark which was uttered with great seriousness. "Can they go to London on camels, he wishes to know," observed Amor gently. Said Hitani waited for Mrs. Shiffney's answer with a slightly judicial air, moving his head as if in approval of the tarah-player's forethought. "I'm afraid they can't."
Then, at a signal from Said Hitani, they all took up their instruments and played and sang a garden song called Mabouf, describing how a Sheik and his best loved wife walked in a great garden and sang one against the other. "It has been quite delicious!" said Mrs.
At the opposite end of the room five musicians were squatting, four in a semicircle facing the coffee niche, the fifth alone, almost facing them. This fifth was Said Hitani, the famous flute-player of Constantine a man at this time sixty-three years old. In front of him was a flat board, on which lay two freshly rolled cigarettes and several cigarette ends.
"I have a right to be specially interested since that evening with Said Hitani. And then I have been privileged. I have read the libretto." As she spoke Claude was conscious of uneasiness. He thought of Charmian, of Mrs. Shiffney, of the libretto.
"What will Madame pay?" interposed Said Hitani. Mrs. Shiffney declared seriously that she would think it over, make a calculation, and Amor should convey her decision as to price to him on the morrow. All seemed well satisfied with this. And the tarah-player remarked, after a slight pause, that he would wait to know about the price before he decided whether he would be too sick to play in London.
"Come to hear your music, for I know they are all playing only for you and the opera." Her strong, almost masculine hand lingered in his, and how could he let it go without impoliteness? "Aren't they?" "I suppose so." "It's wonderful the way they play. Said Hitani is an artist." "You know his name?" "And I must know him. May I stay a little?" "Of course." He looked round for a seat.
He knew little of music, but in the scene rehearsed Claude had introduced a clever imitation, if not an exact reproduction, of the songs of Said Hitani and his companions. This had aroused the enthusiasm of Gillier, who had a curious love of the country where he had spent the wild years of his youth. It had been evident both to Charmian and to Claude that he began to have great hopes of the opera.
On a wooden board beside him was some music paper, and now and then with a stylograph he jotted down some notes. He looked both emotional and thoughtful. Often his imaginative eyes rested on the small and hunched-up figure of Said Hitani, dressed in white, black, and gold, with a hood drawn over the head. Now and then he looked toward the window, and it seemed to Mrs.
Then sharply he uttered a torrent of words which seemed almost to fight their way out of some chamber in his narrow throat. "Said Hitani says you have only to send money and the address and they are all coming whenever you like. They are very pleased to come."
Shiffney to Claude, when at last the song Au Revoir, tumultuously brilliant with a tremendous crescendo at the close, had been played, and with many salaams and good wishes the musicians had departed. "I love their playing," Claude answered. "But really you shouldn't have paid them. I have arranged with Hitani to come every evening."
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