lted obliquely so that
Theron could see the rose-tinted, beautiful countenance, framed as if
asleep in the billowing luxuriance of unloosed auburn hair. He fancied
her beholding visions as she wrought the music--visions full of barbaric
color and romantic forms. As his mind swam along with the gliding,
tricksy phantom of a tune, it seemed as if he too could see these
visions--as if he gazed at them through her eyes.

It could not be helped. He lifted himself noiselessly to his feet, and
stole with caution toward her. He would hear the rest of this weird,
voluptuous fantasy standing thus, so close behind her that he could look
down upon her full, uplifted lace--so close that, if she moved, that
glowing nimbus of hair would touch him.

There had been some curious and awkward pauses in this last piece, which
Theron, by some side cerebration, had put down to her not watching
what her fingers did. There came another of these pauses now--an odd,
unaccountable halt in what seemed the middle of everything. He stared
intently down upon her statuesque, dreaming face during the hush, and
caught his breath as he waited. There fell at last a few faltering
ascending notes, making a half-finished strain, and then again there was
silence.

Celia opened her eyes, and poured a direct, deep gaze into the face
above hers. Its pale lips were parted in suspense, and the color had
faded from its cheeks.

"That is the end," she said, and, with a turn of her lithe body, stood
swiftly up, even while the echoes of the broken melody seemed panting in
the air about her for completion.

Theron put his hands to his face, and pressed them tightly against eyes
and brow for an instant. Then, throwing them aside with an expansive
downward sweep of the arms, and holding them clenched, he returned
Celia's glance. It was as if he had never looked into a woman's eyes
before.

"It CAN'T be the end!" he heard himself saying, in a low voice charged
with deep significance. He held her gaze in the grasp of his with
implacable tenacity. There was a trouble about breathing, and the mosaic
floor seemed to stir under his feet. He clung defiantly to the one idea
of not releasing her eyes.

"How COULD it be the end?" he demanded, lifting an uncertain hand to
his breast as he spoke, and spreading it there as if to control the
tumultuous fluttering of his heart. "Things don't end that way!"

A sharp, blinding spasm of giddiness closed upon and shook him, while