was surely the music of a Mass—­huge, majestic, sombre?  It stalked through the smoky room with slow power, like the passage of something that was mighty, yet profoundly intimate, and as it went there stirred into each and every face about him the signature of the enormous forces of which it was the audible symbol.  The countenances round him turned sinister, but not idly, negatively sinister:  they grew dark with purpose.  He suddenly recalled the face of Bruder Kalkmann in the corridor earlier in the evening.  The motives of their secret souls rose to the eyes, and mouths, and foreheads, and hung there for all to see like the black banners of an assembly of ill-starred and fallen creatures.  Demons—­was the horrible word that flashed through his brain like a sheet of fire.

When this sudden discovery leaped out upon him, for a moment he lost his self-control.  Without waiting to think and weigh his extraordinary impression, he did a very foolish but a very natural thing.  Feeling himself irresistibly driven by the sudden stress to some kind of action, he sprang to his feet—­and screamed!  To his own utter amazement he stood up and shrieked aloud!

But no one stirred.  No one, apparently, took the slightest notice of his absurdly wild behaviour.  It was almost as if no one but himself had heard the scream at all—­as though the music had drowned it and swallowed it up—­as though after all perhaps he had not really screamed as loudly as he imagined, or had not screamed at all.

Then, as he glanced at the motionless, dark faces before him, something of utter cold passed into his being, touching his very soul....  All emotion cooled suddenly, leaving him like a receding tide.  He sat down again, ashamed, mortified, angry with himself for behaving like a fool and a boy.  And the music, meanwhile, continued to issue from the white and snakelike fingers of Bruder Schliemann, as poisoned wine might issue from the weirdly fashioned necks of antique phials.

And, with the rest of them, Harris drank it in.

Forcing himself to believe that he had been the victim of some kind of illusory perception, he vigorously restrained his feelings.  Then the music presently ceased, and every one applauded and began to talk at once, laughing, changing seats, complimenting the player, and behaving naturally and easily as though nothing out of the way had happened.  The faces appeared normal once more.  The Brothers crowded round their visitor, and he joined in their talk and even heard himself thanking the gifted musician.

But, at the same time, he found himself edging towards the door, nearer and nearer, changing his chair when possible, and joining the groups that stood closest to the way of escape.

“I must thank you all tausendmal for my little reception and the great pleasure—­the very great honour you have done me,” he began in decided tones at length, “but I fear I have trespassed far too long already on your hospitality.  Moreover, I have some distance to walk to my inn.”