our restless hands are thrust through it and
beyond, opening eagerly and shutting on nothing, though we know that
something is there.

Angelo Reanda was passionately fond of what was called music in Italy
more than thirty years ago. He had the true ear and the facile memory
for melody common to Italians, who are a singing people, if not a
musical race, and which constituted a talent for music when music was
considered to be a succession of sounds rather than a series of sensuous
impressions. He could listen to an opera, understand it without thought,
enjoy it simply, and remember it without difficulty, like thousands of
other Romans. Most of us would willingly go back to such childlike
amusements if we could. A few possess the power even now, and are looked
upon with friendly contempt by their more cultured, and therefore more
tortured, musical acquaintances, whose dream it is to be torn to very
rags in the delirium of orchestral passion.

Reanda went to the Apollo Theatre in search of merely pleasurable
sensations, and he got exactly what he wanted. The old house was
brilliant even in those days, less with light than with jewels, it is
true, but perhaps that illumination was as good as any other. The Roman
ladies and the ladies of the great embassies used then to sit through
the whole evening in their boxes, and it was the privilege, as it is
still in Rome, of the men in the stalls and pit to stand up between the
acts and admire them and their diamonds as much as they pleased. The
light was dim enough, compared with what we have nowadays; for gas was
but just introduced in a few of the principal streets, and the lamps in
the huge chandelier at the Apollo, and in the brackets around the house,
were filled with the olive oil which to-day dresses the world's salad.
But it was a soft warm light, with rich yellow in it, which penetrated
the shadows and beautified all it touched.

Reanda, like the others, stood up and looked about him after the first
act. His eyes were instantly arrested by Gloria's splendid hair, which
caught the light from above. She was seated in the front of a box on the
third tier, the second row of boxes being almost exclusively reserved in
those days. Dalrymple was beside his daughter, and the dark, still face
of Paul Griggs was just visible in the shadow.

Gloria saw the artist almost immediately, for he could not help looking
at her curiously, comparing her face with the mad sketch he had made o