le iceberg of
a girl put so much devilment into the way she touched the keys? If it
had not been for the interest this problem caused me, the longing the
sounds aroused in me to be human again, would have driven me mad.

No one who can play dance music with that lilt can be as cold as a
stone--.

From this she suddenly turned to Debussy--she played a most difficult
thing of his--I can't remember its name--then she stopped.

"Do you like Debussy?" I asked.

"No, not always."

"Then why did you play it?"

"I supposed you would."

"If you had said in plain words, 'I think you are a rotter who wants
first dance music, then an unrestful modern decadent, brilliantly clever
set of disharmonies,' you could not have expressed your opinion of me
more plainly."

She remained silent--I could have boxed her ears.

I leaned back in my chair, perhaps I gave a short harsh sigh--if a sigh
can be harsh--I was conscious that I had made some explosive sound.

She turned back to the piano again and began "Waterlily" and then
"1812"--and the same strange quivering came over me that I experienced
when I heard the cooing of the child.--My nerves must be in an awful
rotten state--Then a longing to start up and break something shook me,
break the windows, smash the lamp--yell aloud--I started to my one
leg--and the frightful pain of my sudden movement did me good and
steadied me.

Miss Sharp had left the piano and came over to me--.

"I am afraid you did not like that," she said--"I am so sorry"--her
voice was not so cold as usual.

"Yes I did--" I answered--"forgive me for being an awful ass--I--I--love
music tremendously, you see--"

She stood still for a moment--I was balancing myself by the table, my
crutch had fallen. Then she put out her hand.

"Can I help you to sit down again?"--she suggested.

And I let her--I wanted to feel her touch--I have never even shaken
hands with her before. But when I felt her guiding me to the chair, the
maddest desire to seize her came over me--to seize her in my arms to
tear off those glasses, to kiss those beautiful blue eyes they hid--to
hold her fragile scrap of a body tight against my breast, to tell her
that I loved her--and wanted to hold her there, mine and no one else's
in all the world----My God! what am I writing--I must crush this
nonsense--I must be sane--. But--what an emotion! The strongest I have
ever felt about a woman in my life--.

When I was settled in the chair agai