, as if on the foe, with a bound--was flung back--so
it seemed--and again sprang to the assault. She stiffened to stubborn
resistance--she unexpectedly became pliant and yielding and graceful,
and voluptuous, while the music took on the dreamy tones of love. And
Lambert translated the change after his own idea:

"The music does not please the dancer--it is too martial. She fears lest
her lover should rush off to the wars, and seeks to detain him by the
dance of Venus. But he will go. He rises; he speeds away; she breaks off
the dance. Ah! what a cry of despair the violin gave just now. She
follows, stretching out her empty arms. But it is useless--he is gone.
Bah! She snaps her fingers. What does she care! She will dance to please
herself, and to show that her heart is yet whole. What a Bacchanalian
strain. She whirls and springs and swoops and leaps. She comes near to
me, whirling like a Dervish; she recedes, and then comes spinning round
again, like a mad creature. And then--oh, hang it! What do you mean?
Chaldea, what are you doing?"

Lambert had some excuse for suddenly bursting into speech, when he cried
out vigorously: "Oh, hang it!" for Chaldea whirled right up to him and
had laid her arms round his neck, and her lips against his cheek. The
music stopped abruptly, with a kind of angry snarl, as if Kara, furious
at the sight, had put his wrath into the last broken note. Then all was
silent, and the artist found himself imprisoned in the arms of the
woman, which were locked round his neck. With an oath he unlinked her
fingers and flung her away from him fiercely.

"You fool--you utter fool!" cried Lambert, striving to calm down the
beating of his heart, and restrain the racing of his blood, for he was
a man, and the sudden action of the gypsy had nearly swept away his
self-restraint.

"I love you--I love you," panted Chaldea from the grass, where he had
thrown her. "Oh, my beautiful one, I love you."

"You are crazy," retorted Lambert, quivering with many emotions to which
he could scarcely put a name, so shaken was he by the experience. "What
the devil do you mean by behaving in this way?" and his voice rose in
such a gust of anger that Kara, hidden in the wood, rejoiced. He could
not understand what was being said, but the tone of the voice was enough
for him. He did not know whether Chaldea was cheating the Gentile, or
cheating him; but he gathered that in either case, she had been
repulsed. The girl knew t