low the rim of the lake.

Then a low rumble of drums muttered as she stole from the stage,
the personification of vindictive triumph, and all at once the great
concourse of people in the auditorium seemed to strain forward,
conscious that the climax of the evening, the wonderful solo dance by
the Wielitzska, was about to begin.

The moon rose on the left, and Magda, a slim white figure in her dress
which cleverly suggested the plumage of a swan, floated on to the
stage with that exquisite, ethereal lightness of movement which
only toe-dancing--and toe-dancing of the most perfectly finished
quality--seems able to convey. It was as though her feet were not
touching the solid earth at all. The feather-light drifting of blown
petals; the swaying grace of a swan as it glides along the surface of
the water; the quivering, spirit-like flight of a butterfly--it seemed
as though all these had been caught and blended together by the dancer.

The heavier instruments of the orchestra were silenced, but the rippling
music of the strings wove and interwove a dreaming melody, unutterably
sweet and appealing, as the Swan-Maiden, bathed in pallid moonlight,
besought the invisible Ritmagar for mercy, praying that she might not
die even though the sun had set. . . . But there comes no answer to
her prayers. A sombre note of stern denial sounds in the music, and the
Swan-Maiden yields to utter despair, drooping slowly to earth. Just
as Death himself claims her, her lover, demented with anguish, comes
rushing to her side, and turning towards him as she lies dying upon
the ground, she yields to his embrace with a last gesture of passionate
surrender.

Slowly the heavy curtains swung together, hiding the limp, lifeless body
of the Swan-Maiden and the despairing figure of her lover as he knelt
beside her, and after a breathless pause, the great audience, carried
away by the tragic drama of the dance, its passion and its pathos, broke
into a thunder of applause that rolled and reverberated through the
theatre.

Again and again Magda and her partner were called before the curtain,
the former laden with the sheafs of flowers which had been handed up
on to the stage. But the audience refused to be satisfied until at last
Magda appeared alone, standing very white and slender under the blaze
of lights, a faint suggestion of fatigue in the poise of her lissome
figure.

Instantly the applause broke out anew--thunderous, overwhelming. Magda