Page:The Blind Bow-Boy (IA blindbowboy00vanv).pdf/238

 ing, I have stand round the barrel, and though it smelled just like the drainings of a tanyard, counted the drops when it was poured into my pannikin as if they had been gold. . . . Si, señor,. . . that is I mean,. . . how do you put it, eh?—it is not good to say fountain—out of your basin I shall never drink. . . eh, no señor.

Harold wavered. But will she want me?

That we must find out, was Campaspe's reply.

After he had departed, a half-hour later, Camipaspe strolled back into the house and on to the drawing-room. A day or so earlier she had sent for some music by Bach, in order to satisfy a certain intellectual curiosity. Bach! Bach! Bach! She met the name, enshrined in extravagant encomiums, in all the writings about music that she read, but where was Bach played? Who played Bach? She was beginning to believe that Bach was one of the veiled gods, and she wanted to settle the question for herself. Among the Etruscans certain of the most powerful deities were never seen by the people. The priests referred to these hidden idols as Dii Involuti, veiled gods. Their words were frequently quoted, but the gods themselves remained invisible. Certain savants have derived from this fact the explanation that the Etruscans may have held transcendental views in regard to the invisibility of the true god, but at least one commentator, whose work had come under Campaspe's eternally roving eye, had held that there might be a simpler inter-