e of fretted white coral. They ate
mincingly in contrast to M. Regnier who, guarded by a very large napkin,
pitchforked his food into his mouth with noisy recklessness. Later in
the mellow August afternoon Michael and he walked solemnly round the
town together, and Michael wondered if he had ever before raised his hat
so many times.

After dinner, when the coffee and cassis had been drunk, Madame Regnier
invited Stella to play to them. Dusk was falling in the florid French
drawing-room, but so rich was the approach of darkness that no lamps
brooded with rosy orbs, and only a lighted candle on either side of
Stella stabbed the gloom in which the listeners leaned quietly back
against the tropic tapestries of their chairs, without trying to occupy
themselves with books or crochet-work.

Michael sat by the scented window, watching the stars twinkle, it almost
seemed, in tune with the vibrant melodies that Stella rang out. In the
bewitching candlelight the keyboard trembled and shimmered like water to
a low wind. Deep in the shadow the three old ladies sat in a waxen
ecstasy, so still that Michael wondered whether they were alive. He did
not know whose tunes they were that Stella played; he did not know what
dreams they wove for the old ladies, whether of spangled opera-house or
ball; he did not care, being content to watch the lissome hands that
from time to time went dancing away on either side from the curve of
Stella's straight back, whether to play with raindrops in the treble or
marshal thunders from the bass. The candlelight sprayed her flowing
chestnut hair with a golden mist that might have been an aureole over
which the apple-green bows floated unsubstantial like amazing moths.

Michael continually tried to shape his ideas to the inspiration of the
music, but every image that rose battling for expression lost itself in
a peerless stupefaction.

Then suddenly Stella stopped playing, and the enchantment was dispelled
by murmurous praise and entering lamplight. Stella, slim as a fountain,
stood upright in the centre of the drawing-room and, like a fountain,
swayed now this way, now that, to catch the compliments so dear to her.
Michael wished the three old ladies would not appeal to him to endorse
their so perfectly phrased enthusiasm, and grew very conscious of the
gradual decline of 'oui' into 'wee' as he supported their laudation. He
was glad when M. Regnier proposed a game of billiards, and glad to see
that St