ed Miss Ogilvy took note and matured plans.

Warner began to read in his low, toneless, but distinct voice. In a
few moments the excitement subsided; he was pronounced insufferably
monotonous. Fans rustled, hoops scraped the hard floors. Lady
Constance gave a loud admonitory cough. Warner paid no heed. Still he
read on in low monotone. A few moments more and its spell had enmeshed
the company. The silence was so deep that the low murmur of the sea
could be heard beyond (or within) his own voice. The most impatient,
the most vehement, raised significant eyebrows and shot out optical
affirmations that nothing could be more effective than the verbal
method the poet had adopted--although doubtless it was quite his own,
so in keeping was it with his reserved, retiring, non-committal
personality. Be that as it may, the dramatic scenes, the impassioned
phrases, the virile original vocabulary that flowed from his set lips
could never be delivered so potently by tones that matched their
tenor. The contrast flung them into undreamed of relief. Those most
familiar with his work wondered that they had never understood it
before.

Anne felt more than all this. She closed her eyes and enjoyed a
delusion. It was the soul of the poet reading. The body there was but
a fallacy of vision, non-existent, really dead, perhaps; subservient
for a while longer to that imperious immortal part that had not yet
fulfilled its earthly mission. She had allowed herself to believe that
she had caught fleeting glimpses of this man's soul, so different from
his battered clay; to-night she heard it, and heard as she never did
by the North Sea when all her world was one vast delusion. It murmured
like the sea itself, the gray cold sea of some strange dark planet
beyond the stars, whence came, who knew? all genius; a sea whose tides
would rise high and higher until they exhausted the clay they beat
upon while they had yet a message to deliver to Earth. That clay! If
it could but be preserved a few years longer! Great as was his
accomplished work he must do greater yet. No student of his more
ambitious poems, half lyric, half dramatic, believed his powers were
yet developed.

Anne came to herself amidst a new thunder of applause. She told
herself with a sigh and an angry blush that she was a romantic idiot
and the sooner she married and had a little family to think of the
better. Heaven knew what folly she might be capable of did she give
rein to dreams.