finds that nothing may be sweeter or of more
beauty, and then, most sudden and terrible there sounds there, below, a
cry, 'E,--F,--F sharp,--G;' and it is not a cry, rather a scream,
strength, force,--a Must made of the music,--and one perceives of a
lightning flash that all the love was but the background of the passion
of that cry of those four notes; and one listens, one trembles, one
feels that they were to come before they are there, and when they have
come, one can but shake and know their force." He stopped and took his
cigarette from between his lips. "_Mon Dieu_," he cried violently, "of
what was the composer thinking when he beat out those bars? When you
shall play them you shall take only your forefinger and draw all your
strength within it, and when the notes shriek in pain you shall have one
secret of passion there beneath your hand."

He spoke with such force,--such a tremendous force of feeling, that her
face betrayed her wonder.

"I frighten you,--yes?" he asked with a smile of reassurance; "oh, that
must not be. I only speak so because I will that you know too. It is
good to know. Many go to the end and never know but love and are very
well content, but I think you will know more. I did love myself once.
She was never mine, and the time is gone, and I have thought to suffer
much forever, and then I have stop to suffer, and now I am all forget.
But," he flung his cigarette to the waves, and for the first time during
his monologue turned squarely towards her, "but if I have a passion come
to me _now_, _that_ woman shall be mine! If I die for it she shall be
mine. Because what I feel shall be so strong that she shall of force
feel it too. Every day, every night, every hour, the need of me will go
to her strongly and make her weaker, and weaker, and weaker, until she
have no choice but of the being all mine. And so you are quite decided
to go to Zurich to-morrow?"

He brought forth the question in such sudden change of subject that she
started involuntarily. But then relief at the descent into the
commonplace came on her and she replied:

"Yes, I want to go there to-morrow."

"But why do you not want to on Tuesday--or next week?"

"My friend is there," she reminded him.

His brow clouded, and she knew the reason why.

"You are so typically European," she laughed; "I do believe that
humanity over here has only two bases of action, and they are governed
by '_Cherchez la femme_' and '_Cherchez l'homm