hese should be seething in him, and she
remain ignorant of them. He lost touch with reality, and dreamed dreams
of imperceptible threads, finer than any gossamer, which could be spun
from soul to soul, without the need of speech.

He heaped on her all the spiritual perfections that answered to her
appearance. And he did not, for a time, observe anything to make him
waver in his faith that she was whiter, stiller, and more
unapproachable--of a different clay, in short, from other women. Then,
however, this illusion was shattered. Late one afternoon, she came down
the stairs of the house she lived in, and, pausing at the door, looked
up and down the hot, empty street, shading her eyes with her hand. No
one was in sight, and she was about to turn away, when, from where he
was watching in a neighbouring doorway, Maurice saw the red-haired
violinist come swiftly round the corner. She saw him, too, took a few,
quick steps towards him, and, believing herself unseen, looked up in is
face as they met; and the passionate tenderness of the look, the sudden
lighting of lip and eye, racked the poor, unwilling spy for days. To
suit this abrupt descent from the pedestal, he was obliged to carve a
new attribute to his idol, and laboriously adapt it.

Schilsky, this insolent boy, was the thorn in his side. It was Schilsky
she was oftenest to be met with; he was her companion at the most
unexpected hours; and, with reluctance, Maurice had to admit to himself
that she had apparently no thought to spare for anyone else. But it did
not make any difference. The curious way in which he felt towards her,
the strange, overwhelming effect her face had on him, took no account
of outside things. Though he might never hope for a word from her;
though he should learn in the coming moment that she was the other's
promised wife; he could not for that reason banish her from his mind.
His feelings were not to be put on and off, like clothes; he had no
power over them. It was simply a case of accepting things as they were,
and this he sought to do.

But his imagination made it hard for him, by throwing up pictures in
which Schilsky was all-prominent. He saw him the confidant of her joys
and troubles; HE knew their origin, knew what key her day was set in.
If her head ached, if she were tired or spiritless, his hand was on her
brow. The smallest events in her life were an open book to him; and it
was these worthless details that Maurice Guest envied him