ed at last in the music! The lovely ease and lilt of her own
soul in its motion through the music! She wasn't aware of the flute. She
didn't know there was anything except her own pure lovely song-drift.
Her soul seemed to breathe as a butterfly breathes, as it rests on a
leaf and slowly breathes its wings. For the first time! For the first
time her soul drew its own deep breath. All her life, the breath had
caught half-way. And now she breathed full, deep, to the deepest extent
of her being.

And oh, it was so wonderful, she was dazed. The song ended, she stood
with a dazed, happy face, like one just coming awake. And the fard
on her face seemed like the old night-crust, the bad sleep. New and
luminous she looked out. And she looked at Aaron with a proud smile.

"Bravo, Nan! That was what you wanted," said her husband.

"It was, wasn't it?" she said, turning a wondering, glowing face to him.

His face looked strange and withered and gnome-like, at the moment.

She went and sat in her chair, quite silent, as if in a trance. The
two men also sat quite still. And in the silence a little drama played
itself between the three, of which they knew definitely nothing. But
Manfredi knew that Aaron had done what he himself never could do, for
this woman. And yet the woman was his own woman, not Aaron's. And so, he
was displaced. Aaron, sitting there, glowed with a sort of triumph. He
had performed a little miracle, and felt himself a little wonder-worker,
to whom reverence was due. And as in a dream the woman sat, feeling what
a joy it was to float and move like a swan in the high air, flying upon
the wings of her own spirit. She was as a swan which never before could
get its wings quite open, and so which never could get up into the open,
where alone it can sing. For swans, and storks make their music only
when they are high, high up in the air. Then they can give sound to
their strange spirits. And so, she.

Aaron and Manfredi kept their faces averted from one another and hardly
spoke to one another. It was as if two invisible hands pushed their
faces apart, away, averted. And Aaron's face glimmered with a little
triumph, and a little grimace of obstinacy. And the Italian's face
looked old, rather monkey-like, and of a deep, almost stone-bare
bitterness. The woman looked wondering from one man to the
other--wondering. The glimmer of the open flower, the wonder-look, still
lasted. And Aaron said in his heart, what a goodly