t!"

Even as he said it, the fair man reappeared alone. "What did I say? Eve
will be Eve--Adam will be Adam!"

But Max was not listening. Excited, lifted beyond himself, he was
watching the Englishman thread a way between the tables--watching the
woman thrill to his approach without lifting an eyelid, moving a muscle.
Rigid as a statue she sat, until he was quite close; then, curiously, as
if nature demanded some symbol of the fires within, her lips opened and
she began to hum the tune the orchestra was playing.

It was a strange form of self-expression, and as she yielded to it her
cheeks burned suddenly and her eyes shone between their narrowed lids.

She did not speak when the man seated himself at her table, she did not
even look up; she went on humming in a strange ecstatic reverie, but she
smiled--a very slow, a very subtle smile.

A waiter came, and wine was brought; she drank, laid down her glass and
continued her strange song. The seller of flowers hovered about the
table, smiling at the Englishman, and laid a sheaf of pink roses on the
white cloth; still the humming continued, though mechanically the
woman's long, white fingers gathered up the flowers and held them
against her face. At last, unexpectedly, she raised her head, looked at
the man whose eyes were now fixed in fascination upon her, looked away
beyond him, and, lifting her voice from its murmuring note, began to
sing aloud.

It was a scene curious beyond description--the hot, white room, the many
painted faces, the many jewelled hands, the grotesque black forms of
the negro dancers, and in the midst a woman hypnotized by her own
triumph into absolute oblivion.

She sat with the roses in her hands, her eyes looking into space, while
her voice, pure and singularly true, gathered strength until gradually
the chattering of voices and the clinking of glasses lessened, and the
musicians lowered their music to a deliberate accompaniment.

Nowhere but in Paris could such a scene take place; but here, although
the faces turned toward the singer's were flushed with wine, they were
touched with comprehension. The gathered roses--the high, sweet
voice--the rapt face composed a picture, and even when his eyes are
glazed, your Parisian is a connoisseur.

The last note quivered into silence; a little ripple of applause
followed; and with the same concentrated, hypnotized gaze, the woman's
eyes turned from space and rested again upon the man.

It was th