he could not
collect himself: his heart seemed to have leapt into his throat, and
there to be hammering so hard that he had no voice with which to answer
her greeting.

Owing to what he now termed his idiotic preoccupation with himself, he
had overlooked the fact that she, too, would be in evening dress.
Another thing was, he had never seen Louise in any but street-dress, or
the loose dressing-gown. Now he called himself a fool and absurd; this
was how she was obliged to be. Convention decreed it, hence it was
perfectly decorous; it was his own feelings that were unnatural,
overstrained. But, in the same breath, a small voice whispered to him
that all dresses were not like this one; also that every girl was not
of a beauty, which, thus emphasised, made the common things of life
seen poor and stale.

Louise wore a black dress, which glistened over all its surface, as if
it were sown with sparks; it wound close about her, and out behind her
on the floor. But this was only the sheath, from which rose the
whiteness of her arms and shoulders, and the full column of her throat,
on which the black head looked small. Until now, he had seen her bared
wrist--no more. Now the only break on the long arm was a band of black
velvet, which as it were insisted on the petal-white purity of the
skin, and served in place of a sleeve.

Strange thoughts coursed through the young man's mind. His first
impulse had been to avert his eyes; in this familiar room it did not
seem fitting to see her dressed so differently from the way he had
always known her. Before, however, he had followed this sensation to an
end, he made himself the spontaneous avowal that, until now, he had
never really seen her. He had known and treasured her face--her face
alone. Now he became aware that to the beautiful head belonged also a
beautiful body, that, in short, every bit of her was beautiful and
desirable. And this feeling in its turn was overcome by a painful
reflection: others besides himself would make a similar observation;
she was about to show herself to a hundred other eyes: and this struck
him as such an unbearable profanation, that he could have gone down on
his knees to her, to implore her to stay at home.

Unconscious of his embarrassment, Louise had gone to the console-glass;
and there, with the lamp held first above her head, then placed on the
console-table, she critically examined her appearance. As if
dissatisfied, she held a velvet bow to th