vels would come to pass and then bring them back
to their senses to discover that she was after all only a woman, and
that the marvels they looked for from her were really in themselves.

So she dallied with her power, not quite knowing what she wished to do
with it, and, as she dallied, she became more conscious of her force,
and she grew impatient with her youth which had been her undoing, so
easily given, so greedily accepted. No one but Rodd had seen beyond it
and, for a while, she detested him for having done so.... Nothing had
gone smoothly since her meeting with him. The pace of events had
quickened until it was too fast even for her, and she could do nothing
but wait, nothing but fall back upon Ariel.

The dress rehearsal dragged through a whole day and most of a night.
It hobbled along. Nothing was right. Sir Henry could hardly remember
a word of his part. Ferdinand's wig was a monstrosity. Miranda looked
like the fairy-queen in a provincial pantomime. There was hardly a
dress to which Lady Butcher did not take exception, though she passed
Clara's sky-blue and silver net as 'terribly attractive.' ... Clara
delighted in the freedom of her fairy costume. Her lovely slim figure
showed to perfection. She moved like the wind, like a breeze in long
silvery grass. She gave the impression of movement utterly free of her
body, which melted into movement, and was lost in it. The stage-island
was then to her really an island, the power of Prospero was true magic,
the air was drenched with sea-salt, heavy, rich, pregnant with
invisible life urging into form and issuing sometimes in strange music,
mysterious voices prophesying in song, and plaints of woe from life
that could find no other utterance.... Ah! How free she felt as all
this power of fancy seized her and bore her aloft and laid her open to
all the new spirit, all the promise of the new life that out of the
world came thrilling into this magical universe. How free she felt and
how oblivious of her surroundings! There was that in her that nothing
could destroy, something more than youth, deeper than joy which is no
more than the lark's song showering down through the golden air of
April.... Here in her freedom she knew herself, a soul, a living soul,
with loving laughter accepting the life ordained for it by Providence,
but dominating it, shaping it, moulding it, filling it with love until
it brimmed over and spilled its delight upon surrounding l