t his hand on that shoulder, as if he liked it to be there. Helfen's
eyes said as plainly as possibly that he liked it. Fast friends, on the
face of it, were these two men. In this moment, though I sat still,
motionless, and quiet, I certainly realized as nearly as possible that
impossible sensation, the turning upside down of the world. I did not
breathe. I waited, spell-bound, in the vague idea that my eyes might
open and I find that I had been dreaming. After an earnest speech to
Helfen the new-comer raised his head. As he shouldered his violin his
eyes traveled carelessly along the first row of the parquet--our row. I
did not awake; things did not melt away in a mist before my eyes. He
was Eugen Courvoisier, and he looked braver, handsomer, gallanter, and
more apart from the crowd of men now, in this moment, than even my
sentimental dreams had pictured him. I felt it all: I also know now
that it was partly the very strength of the feeling that I had--the very
intensity of the admiration which took from me the reflection and reason
for the moment. I felt as if every one must see how I felt. I remembered
that no one knew what had happened; I dreaded lest they should. I did
the most cowardly and treacherous thing that circumstances permitted to
me--displayed to what an extent my power of folly and stupidity could
carry me. I saw these strange bright eyes, whose power I felt, coming
toward me. In one second they would be upon me. I felt myself white with
anxiety. His eyes were coming--coming--slowly, surely. They had fallen
upon Vincent, and he nodded to him. They fell upon me. It was for the
tenth of a second only. I saw a look of recognition flash into his
eyes--upon his face. I saw that he was going to bow to me. With (as it
seemed to me) all the blood in my veins rushing to my face, my head
swimming, my heart beating, I dropped my eyes to the play-bill upon my
lap, and stared at the crabbed German characters--the names of the
players, the characters they took. "Elsa--Lohengrin." I read them again
and again, while my ears were singing, my heart beating so, and I
thought every one in the theater knew and was looking at me.

"Mind you listen to the overture, Miss Wedderburn," said Vincent,
hastily, in my ear, as the first liquid, yearning, long-drawn notes
sounded from the violins.

"Yes," said I, raising my face at last, looking or rather feeling a
look compelled from me, to the place where he sat. This time our eyes