aw-net of submerged memories, of secret, unsuspected passions. It
held in its impalpable web his dreams, the divine and delicate things
that his grosser self let slip. He would forget, forget for ages,
until, in the schoolroom at concert time, at the first caress of the
magical smell, those delicate and divine, those secret, submerged, and
forgotten things arose, and with the undying poignancy and subtlety of
odors they entered into him again. And besides these qualities which
were indefinable, the smell was vividly symbolic. It was entwined with
and it stood for his experience of art and ambition and the power to
move men and women; for song and for the sensuous thrill and spiritual
ecstasy of singing and for the subsequent applause. It was the only
form of intoxication known to him that did not end in headache and in
shame.

Suddenly the charm that had sustained him ceased to work.

Under it he had been sitting in suspense, waiting for something,
knowing and not daring to own to himself what it was he waited
for. The suspense and the waiting seemed all part of the original
excitement.

Then Alice Cartaret came up the room.

Her passage had been obscured and obstructed by the crowd of villagers
at the door. But they had cleared a way for her and she came.

She carried herself like a crowned princess. The cords of her cloak
(it was of dove color, lined with blue) had loosened in her passage,
and the cloak had slipped, showing her naked shoulders. She wore a
little dove-gray gown with some blue about it and a necklace of pale
amber. Her white arms hung slender as a child's from the immense puffs
of the sleeves. Her fair hair was piled in front of a high amber comb.

As she appeared before the platform Rowcliffe rose and took her cloak
from her (Greatorex saw him take it, but he didn't care; he knew more
about the doctor than the doctor knew himself). He handed her up the
steps on to the platform and then turned, like a man who has done all
that chivalry requires of him, to his place between her sisters. The
hand that Rowcliffe had let go went suddenly to her throat, seizing
her necklace and loosening it as if it choked her. Rowcliffe was not
looking at her.

Still with her hand at her throat, she smiled and bowed to the
audience, to the choir, to Greatorex, to the schoolmaster who came
forward (Greatorex cursed him) and led her to the piano.

She sat down, wiped her hands on her handkerchief, and waited,
enduri