a shrill operetta was being performed by a strolling troupe. Mrs.
Vivian's visit was a short one; she remained at the Casino less than
half an hour. But Bernard had some talk with Angela. He sat beside
her--her mother was on the other side, talking with an old French lady
whose acquaintance she had made on the beach. Between Bernard and Angela
several things were said. When his friends went away Bernard walked home
with them. He bade them good-night at the door of their chalet, and then
slowly strolled back to the Casino. The terrace was nearly empty; every
one had gone to listen to the operetta, the sound of whose contemporary
gayety came through the open, hot-looking windows in little thin quavers
and catches. The ocean was rumbling just beneath; it made a ruder but
richer music. Bernard stood looking at it a moment; then he went down
the steps to the beach. The tide was rather low; he walked slowly down
to the line of the breaking waves. The sea looked huge and black and
simple; everything was vague in the unassisted darkness. Bernard stood
there some time; there was nothing but the sound and the sharp, fresh
smell. Suddenly he put his hand to his heart; it was beating very fast.
An immense conviction had come over him--abruptly, then and there--and
for a moment he held his breath. It was like a word spoken in the
darkness--he held his breath to listen. He was in love with Angela
Vivian, and his love was a throbbing passion! He sat down on the stones
where he stood--it filled him with a kind of awe.

CHAPTER XXI

It filled him with a kind of awe, and the feeling was by no means
agreeable. It was not a feeling to which even a man of Bernard
Longueville's easy power of extracting the savour from a sensation could
rapidly habituate himself, and for the rest of that night it was far
from making of our hero the happy man that a lover just coming
to self-consciousness is supposed to be. It was wrong--it was
dishonorable--it was impossible--and yet it was; it was, as nothing in
his own personal experience had ever been. He seemed hitherto to have
been living by proxy, in a vision, in reflection--to have been an echo,
a shadow, a futile attempt; but this at last was life itself, this was
a fact, this was reality. For these things one lived; these were
the things that people had died for. Love had been a fable before
this--doubtless a very pretty one; and passion had been a literary
phrase--employed obviously with