ppeased an imperious lord, but was not so
satisfactory to an exacting lover. He perceived, however, that, whether
as lover or as lord, he must wait for her now, owing to her having waited
for him: so, he sat by her, permitting his hand to be softly squeezed,
and trying to get at least in the track of her ideas, while her ear was
turned to the weir, and her eyes were on the glowing edges of the
cedar-tree.

Finally, on one of many deep breaths, she said: "It's over. Why were you
late? But, never mind now. Never let it be long again when I am expecting
you. It's then I feel so much at his mercy. I mean, if I am where I hear
falling water; sometimes thunder."

Wilfrid masked his complete mystification with a caressing smile; not
without a growing respect for the only person who could make him
experience the pangs of conscious silliness. You see, he was not a
coxcomb.

"That German!" Emilia enlightened him.

"Your old music-master?"

"I wish it, I wish it! I should soon be free from him. Don't you know
that dreadful man I told you about, who's like a black angel to me,
because there is no music like his? and he's a German! I told you how I
first dreamed about him, and then regularly every night, after talking
with my father about Italy and his black-yellow Tedeschi, this man came
over my pillow and made me call him Master, Master. And he is. He seems
as if he were the master of my soul, mocking me, making me worship him in
spite of my hate. I came here, thinking only of you. I heard the water
like a great symphony. I fell into dreaming of my music. That's when I am
at his mercy. There's no one like him. I must detest music to get free
from him. How can I? He is like the God of music."

Wilfrid now remembered certain of her allusions to this rival, who had
hitherto touched him very little. Perhaps it was partly the lovely scene
that lifted him to a spiritual jealousy, partly his susceptibility to a
sentimental exaggeration, and partly the mysterious new charm in Emilia's
manner, that was as a bordering lustre, showing how the full orb was
rising behind her.

"His name?" Wilfrid asked for.

Emilia's lips broke to the second letter of the alphabet; but she cut
short the word. "Why should you hear it? And now that you are here, you
drive him away. And the best is," she laughed, "I am sure you will not
remember any of his pieces. I wish I could not--not that it's the memory;
but he seems all round me, up in the air, an