e pavement. One evening, when she
was playing, he watched for her at the stage-door, through which
emerged one after the other scene-shifters, actors, constables,
firemen, dressers, and actresses. At last she appeared, muffled
in her fur cloak, a bouquet in her hand, tall and pale--so pale
in the dusk her face seemed to him as if illumined by an inward
light. She stood waiting on the doorstep till a carriage was
called.

He clasped both hands on his breast and thought he was going to
die.

When he found himself alone on the deserted _Quai_, he plucked
a leaf from the overhanging bough of a plane tree. Then, setting
his elbows on the parapet of the bridge, he tossed the leaf into
the river and watched it borne away by the current of the stream
that lay silvery in the moonlight, spangled with quivering lights.
He watched it till he could see it no longer. Was it not the
emblem of himself? He, too, was abandoning himself to the waters
of a passion that shone bright and which he thought profound.

X

That year the _Champs de Mars_ was occupied by one of the
series of _Expositions Universelles_. Under the trees, in
the heat and dust, crowds were swarming towards the entrance.
Jean passed the turnstiles and entered the palace of glass and
iron. He was still pursuing his passion, for he associated the
being he loved with all manifestations of art and luxury. He
made for the park and went straight to the Egyptian pavilion.
Egypt had filled his dreams from the day when all his thoughts
had been centred on one woman. In the avenue of sphinxes and
before the painted temple he fell under the glamour that women
of olden days and strange lands exercise on the senses,--on those
of lovers with especial force. The sanctuary was venerable in
his eyes, despite the vulgar use it was put to as part of the
Exhibition. Looking at the jewels of Queen Aahotep, who lived
and was lovely in the days of the Patriarchs, he pondered sadly
over all that had been in the world and was no more. He pictured
in fancy the black locks that had scented this diadem with the
sphinx's head, the slim brown arms these, beads of gold and lapis
lazuli had touched, the shoulders that had worn these vulture's
wings, the peaked bosoms these chains and gorgets had confined,
the breast that had once communicated its warmth to yonder gold
scarabaeus with the blue wing-cases, the little royal hand that
once held that poniard by the hilt wrought over with flow