unsuspected secret.

And Maurice, as he walked away, wondered to himself for still a little
why she should have been so disproportionately angry; but not for long;
for, when he was not actually with Ephie, he was not given to thinking
much about her. Besides, from there, he went straight to the latter
half of an ABENDANTERKALTUNG, to hear Furst play Brahms' VARIATIONS ON
A THEME BY HANDEL

VIII.

That night he had a vivid dream. He dreamt that he was in a garden,
where nothing but lilac grew--grew with a luxuriance he could not have
believed possible, and on fantastic bushes: there were bushes like
steeples and bushes smaller than himself, big and little, broad and
slender, but all were of lilac, and in flower--an extravagant profusion
of white and purple blossoms. He gazed round him in delight, and took
an eager step forward; but, before he could reach the nearest bush, he
saw that it had been an illusion: the bush was stripped and bare, and
the rest were bare as well. "You're too late. It has all been
gathered," he heard a voice say, and at this moment, he saw Ephie at
the end of a long alley of bushes, coming towards him, her arms full of
lilac. She smiled and nodded to him over it, and he heard her laugh,
but when she was half-way down the path, he discovered his mistake: it
was not Ephie but Louise. She came slowly forward, her laden arms
outstretched, and he would have given his life to be able to advance
and to take what she offered him; but he could not stir, could not lift
hand or foot, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Her steps
grew more hesitating, she seemed hardly to move; and then, just as she
reached the spot where he stood, he found that it was not she after
all, but Madeleine, who laughed at his disappointment and said: "I'm
not offended, remember!"--The revulsion of feeling was too great; he
turned away, without taking the flowers she held out to him--and awoke.

This dream was present to him all the morning, like a melody that
haunts and recalls. But he worked more laboriously than usual; for he
was aggrieved with himself for having idled away the previous
afternoon, and then, too, Furst's playing had made a profound
impression on him. In vigorous imitation, he sat down to the piano
again, after a hasty dinner snatched in the neighbourhood; but as he
was only playing scales, he propped open before him a little volume of
Goethe's poems, which Johanna had lent him, and suiting