impression. All day long, she
had been haunted by a nervous, nameless dread. The vague hints and
signs of the past months had suddenly gathered to a nucleus of anxiety
and alarm, and, in spite of her rigid self-control, she had been
terrified into giving the one outcry, partly to satisfy her feminine
need for sympathy, partly with the hope of putting Lorimer upon his
guard. The sympathy had come, prompt and loving; the warning had been
utterly ignored.

Music ought to be taken with fasting and prayer. Quiet nerves and a full
stomach are deaf to its deepest meaning. To most of the audience, _Honor
and Arms_ stood as a superb piece of vocal gymnastics; to Beatrix,
Thayer was like a live wire, pulsing with a virile scorn of any but
uneven contests, defiant only of those mightier than himself. To her
mind, he was ready to court heavy odds, bound to conquer them, one and
all; and her own pulses beat faster in time to the half-barbarous
outburst which ends the great aria. The Gade concerto, instead of
soothing her, had only exasperated her. She longed to get behind the
violinist and the orchestra and even the composer himself, and goad them
into some tenseness of emotion. But the Slavonic Dance had set her heart
bounding once more, until her very finger tips tingled with the blood
racing through them, and the clashing cymbals had seemed scarcely
louder than the ringing of her own ears. The rest had been only the
natural sequel; _Danny_ and Arlt's failure had led inevitably up to the
finale when Thayer's eyes, burning with that new, strange light, had
held her own eyes captive while he had sounded the tragic note which
dominates all human love.

And the finale had not been final, after all. She had had a vague
presentiment that the cross might be at the end; she had been totally
unprepared to find it pressed to her lips, that selfsame night.

With a swift excuse, Thayer had hurried her back into the music-room;
but he had not been able to prevent that one instant when Beatrix had
found herself face to face with a Lorimer she had never known till then.
Though her eyes had betrayed her horror of the scene, she had kept her
voice steady as she asked Thayer to call her carriage and to say her
farewells to her hostess.

Thayer went with her to her own door. Neither of them spoke until they
stood on the steps; then Thayer cleared his throat, but even then his
voice was husky.

"It may not be as bad as you think, Miss Dane," he