buildings
in the next street. He softly got up and turned off the impertinent
gas. Beyond a startled glance over her shoulder she made no objection.
He was utterly fascinated by the movements of the bright head, now
raised, now lowered, now turned towards the window in the changing
moods of the songs.

Moonlight completed the working of the spell that was laid upon him.
For the moment he ceased to be a rational being. He was exalted by
emotion far out of himself. He experienced the sweetness of losing his
own identity. It was as if a great wind had snatched him up into the
universal ether, a region of warmth of colour and perfume. But he was
conscious of a pull on him like that of the magnet for the iron, a pull
that was neither to be questioned nor resisted.

At the last she turned around on the bench again, and her hands dropped
in her lap. "That is all. I'm tired," she said like a child.

With a single movement the rapt youth was at her feet, weaving his arms
about her waist. Unpremeditated words poured from him; words out of
deeps in him of which up to that moment he was unconscious.

"Oh, you woman! You are the first in the world for me! I know you
now! I feel your power! It's too much for me. And I'm glad of it! I
have waited for you. I looked for you in so many girls' faces only to
find emptiness. I began to doubt. Love was just a poetic fancy, I
thought. But I have found it. Let me love you."

She was not surprised, nor angry. She gently tried to detach his arms.
"Oh, hush! hush!" she murmured. "It is not me! It is just the music!"

"It is you! It is you!" he protested. "I knew it when I first saw
you. You or none!"

"But how silly!" she said in a warm, low voice. "You have seen me
twice."

"What difference does that make?" he said impatiently. "One cannot be
mistaken about a thing like this. I love you with all my heart. It
only takes a second to happen, but it can never be undone while I live.
You have entered into me and taken possession. If you left me I should
be no more than a shell of a man!"

"Ah, but be sensible!" she begged him. He thought he felt her
fingertips brush his hair. "Try to be sensible. Think of me."

"I wish to think only of you. What do you want me to do?"

"Get up and sit beside me. Let us talk."

He sat beside her on the bench. He did not offer to touch her again.
The moonlight was in her face; the lifted, shadowy oval seemed angelic
t