that the woman in grey had nearly fallen
asleep over her lace, nodding visibly and recovering herself each time
with a little grunt.

Then, all at once, the breath of spring came in, like the breath of
life, with the warm scent of the garden below, and the sunlight had
stolen across the Persian carpet to her feet. She turned from the
manuscript she had been studying, and without it her fingers suddenly
found the chords, and her lips the words, and the melody floated out
with them into the stillness, low, trembling, and passionate as the
burden of a love-dream, a wonder to hear.

But she scarcely heard it herself, for it came unconsciously. The
meaning had dawned upon her unawares, and she understood without ears,
as if the music were all in her heart, and much nearer to her life than
it could come by hearing alone.

It stirred delicious depths within her; the spring and the sun and the
melody waked that in her which had slept the long sleep of childhood,
while her beautiful outward self was maturing to the blossom.

She understood, and yet she did not; it was a bewildering joy, but it
was a longing; it was an exquisite satisfaction, yet it was also a
secret, unspeakable wish; it was the first thrill of a feeling too
exquisite for words to describe, but with it there came a mysterious
forelightening of something unknown that troubled her maiden peace.

Her lips quivered, her voice died away to a whisper, while her body
vibrated still, like the last string she touched on the lute; a sudden
warmth came to her face then, and sank suddenly away, and all at once it
was all past, and she was gazing at the dark top of the cypress, and a
strange, listless, half-sweet loneliness had come upon her, wherein
nothing mattered any more, nor could anything ever matter again.

That was what had just happened. But the woman in grey had not noticed
it, though she was wide awake now and busily plying her bobbins.

Then the heavy velvet curtain before the door was lifted, and a man's
footstep was heard on the marble floor, and there was another step after
it. Ortensia turned her head carelessly against the back of the chair to
see who was coming, and then rose quickly to her feet.

The Senator had entered and was ushering in a man she had never seen, a
handsome young man of five-and-twenty or so, with a thoughtful face and
deep-set eyes, of a rather dark complexion, as if he came from the
south; his manner was grave, and he was sob