neer. If you've ever been really dying of thirst,
and have reached water again, its sounds become wonderful to you ever
after that--the trickle of a creek, the wash of a wave on the shore,
the drip on a tin roof, the drop over a fall, the swish of a rainstorm.
It's the same with birds and trees. And trees all make different
sounds--that's the shape of the leaves. It's all music, too."

Her breath came quickly with pleasure at the imagination and
observation of his words. "So it wasn't strange that you should be
ravished by Al'mah's singing last night was it?" She looked at him
keenly. "Isn't it curious that such a marvellous gift should be given
to a woman who in other respects--" she paused.

"Yes, I know what you mean. She's so untrained in lots of ways. That's
what I was saying to Stafford a little while ago. They live in a world
of their own, the stage people. There's always a kind of
irresponsibility. The habit of letting themselves go in their art, I
suppose, makes them, in real life, throw things down so hard when they
don't like them. Living at high pressure is an art like music. It
alters the whole equilibrium, I suppose. A woman like Al'mah would
commit suicide, or kill a man, without realizing the true significance
of it all."

"Were you thinking that when you breakfasted with her?"

"Yes, when she was laughing and jesting--and when she kissed me
good-bye."

"When--she--kissed you--good-bye?"

Jasmine drew back, then half-glanced towards her stepmother in the
other room. She was only twenty-two, and though her emancipation had
been accomplished in its way somewhat in advance of her generation, it
had its origin in a very early period of her life, when she had been
allowed to read books of verse--Shelley, Byron, Shakespeare, Verlaine,
Rossetti, Swinburne, and many others--unchallenged and unguided. The
understanding of things, reserved for "the wise and prudent," had been
at first vaguely and then definitely conveyed to her by slow but subtle
means--an apprehension from instinct, not from knowledge. There had
never been a shock to her mind.

The knowledge of things had grown imperceptibly, and most of life's
ugly meanings were known--at a great distance, to be sure, but still
known. Yet there came a sudden half-angry feeling when she heard
Rudyard Byng say, so loosely, that Al'Mah had kissed him. Was it
possible, then, that a man, that any man, thought she might hear such
things without resentment; th