helm
him.

"This afternoon some Handel!" he turned to shout.

Mary nodded. "Will you like that?" she asked Bibbs.

"I don't know. I never heard any except 'Largo.' I don't know anything
about music. I don't even know how to pretend I do. If I knew enough to
pretend, I would."

"No," said Mary, looking at him and smiling faintly, "you wouldn't."

She turned away as a great sound began to swim and tremble in the air;
the huge empty space of the church filled with it, and the two people
listening filled with it; the universe seemed to fill and thrill with
it. The two sat intensely still, the great sound all round about them,
while the church grew dusky, and only the organist's lamp made a
tiny star of light. His white head moved from side to side beneath it
rhythmically, or lunged and recovered with the fierceness of a duelist
thrusting, but he was magnificently the master of his giant, and it sang
to his magic as he bade it.

Bibbs was swept away upon that mighty singing. Such a thing was wholly
unknown to him; there had been no music in his meager life. Unlike
the tale, it was the Princess Bedrulbudour who had brought him to the
enchanted cave, and that--for Bibbs--was what made its magic dazing. It
seemed to him a long, long time since he had been walking home drearily
from Dr. Gurney's office; it seemed to him that he had set out upon a
happy journey since then, and that he had reached another planet, where
Mary Vertrees and he sat alone together listening to a vast choiring of
invisible soldiers and holy angels. There were armies of voices about
them singing praise and thanksgiving; and yet they were alone. It was
incredible that the walls of the church were not the boundaries of
the universe, to remain so for ever; incredible that there was a smoky
street just yonder, where housemaids were bringing in evening papers
from front steps and where children were taking their last spins on
roller-skates before being haled indoors for dinner.

He had a curious sense of communication with his new friend. He knew
it could not be so, and yet he felt as if all the time he spoke to her,
saying: "You hear this strain? You hear that strain? You know the dream
that these sounds bring to me?" And it seemed to him as though she
answered continually: "I hear! I hear that strain, and I hear the new
one that you are hearing now. I know the dream that these sounds bring
to you. Yes, yes, I hear it all! We hear--together!"

And t