od near the window.

"Let's have a little music; that will quiet us. You, Mariano, sit still
as a mouse in your chair and don't come near me. Be a good boy now."

Her fingers rested on the keys; her feet moved the pedals and the
_Largo_ of Handel, grave, mystic, dreamy, swelled softly through the
studio. The melody filled the wide room, already wrapped in shadows, it
made its way through the tapestries, prolonging its winged whisper
through the other two studios, as though it were the song of an organ
played by invisible hands in a deserted cathedral at the mysterious hour
of dusk.

Concha felt stirred with feminine sentimentality, that superficial,
whimsical, sensitiveness that made her friends look on her as a great
artist. The music filled her with tenderness; she strove to keep back
the tears that came to her eyes,--why, she could not tell.

Suddenly she stopped playing and looked around anxiously. The painter
was behind her, she fancied she felt his breath on her neck. She wanted
to protest, to make him draw back with one of her cruel laughs, but she
could not.

"Mariano," she murmured, "go sit down, be a good boy and mind me. If you
don't I'll be cross."

But she did not move; after turning half way around on the stool, she
remained facing the window with one elbow resting on the keys.

They were silent for a long time; she in this position, he watching her
face that now was only a white spot in the deepening shadow.

The panes of the window took on a bluish opaqueness. The branches of the
garden cut them like sinuous, shifting lines of ink. In the deep calm of
the studio the creaking of the furniture could be heard, that breathing
of wood, of dust, of objects in the silence and shadow.

Both of them seem to be captivated by the mystery of the hour, as if the
death of day acted as an anaesthetic on their minds. They felt lulled in
a vague, sweet dream.

She trembled with pleasure.

"Mariano, go away," she said slowly, as if it cost her an effort. "This
is so pleasant, I feel as if I were in a bath, a bath that penetrates to
my very soul. But it isn't right. Turn on the lights, master. Light!
Light! This isn't proper."

Mariano did not listen to her. He had bent over her, taking her hand
that was cold, unfeeling, as if it did not notice the pressure of his.

Then, with a sudden start, he kissed it, almost bit it.

The countess seemed to awake and stood up, proudly, angrily.

"That's childish, Mari