at down at the piano, and shook a shower of melody out of her
slender finger-ends. All the affluent grace of womanhood with the polish
of society spoke in every curve of her pliant figure, in the dainty,
delicate, high-bred gestures. The eyes hung out their false lights of
treacherous intent amid the half-slumberous fire; the very lips seemed
shaped and blossoming with a rare thrill of passion that could turn to a
caress at a look. All along the brow ran fine sinuosities of light that
dazzled like the tracery of pale flame. Had she blossomed into some
royal midsummer flower that is seen but once in an age?

She had motioned him close beside her with an impelling wave of the
hand. He could feel her warmth, her fragrant breath; her soft billowy
dress fell against his foot in a crested wave; her white hand and
slender wrist, just toned, but not hidden, with rare lace like that of
Arachne's spinning, wandered temptingly over toward him. A sudden
delirium took possession of him, an exhilaration that steeped the brain,
that stirred every pulse, that awoke in him an almost maddening desire
to clasp her in his arms, to drain such sweetness from her lips that the
whole world might be beggared ever after, and he not care.

She knew the signs. She had seen more than one man dally on the brink,
and then topple over to the blankness of despair. Even if she had pitied
herself, which she did not, she could have had no mercy on him. Now she
was set to her work, and she meant to do it if she brought into play
every fascination art and nature had furnished her with.

His soul rose and glowed within him. The music, the most ravishing of
its kind, stirred him to that intensity of pain, it seemed as if he must
cry out with torture. No suffering had ever been like this: if the
doctrine of sacrificial fires were true, he might have purchased
paradise.

Did he mean never to stir or speak? Could that hand, lying so passively
on the corner of the piano, remain unmoved, with hers just below it? Its
defiant strength stung her.

"They do not come,"--looking warily around, and passing him with her
veiled eyes, rather than looking at him. "Are you growing weary? Shall I
sing for you?"

The tone had the melody of some lotus-freighted stream. She had thrown
all her sweetness into it.

"If you will."

His was tremulous and husky with repressed passion.

Her voice was not pure: it had the rich depth and pathos of contralto,
and the vibrant cle