And it was framing itself into being at a time when he had most prayed for their untrammelled freedom, when he had most looked for their ultimate emancipation from the claws of that too usurious past.
But, above all, what had brought about the sudden change?
Why had no inkling of it crept to his ears?
Why was she, the passionate pleader for the decencies of life whom he had last watched so patiently and heroically imparting the mastery of the pianoforte to seven little English children in a squalid Paris _pension_, now lapsing back into the old and fiercely abjured avenue of irresponsibility?
Why had she weakened and surrendered, when he himself, the oldtime weakling of the two, had clung so desperately to the narrow path of rectitude?
And what was the meaning and the direction of it all?
And what would it lead to?
But why, above all, had she kept silent, and given him no warning?
Durkin looked up and listened to the soft rustling of the palm branches.

The bray of a distant band saddened him with an unfathomable sense of homesickness.

Through an air that seemed heavy with languid tropicality, and the waiting richness of life, he caught the belated glimmer of lights and the throb and murmur of string music.

It carried in to him what seemed the essential and alluring note of all the existence he had once known and lived.

Yet day by day he had fought back that sirenic call.