WHOM THE GODS DESTROYED
could be at once so limpid and so rich, so thrilling and so clear. And now it crashed out in chords—heavy, broken harmony. All the rapture of possession, the very absolute of human joy were there—but these are words, and that was love and music.
I don't in the least know how long it lasted. There was no time for me. The god at the piano repeated it again and again, I think, as it is never repeated in the singing, and always should be. I know that the tears rolled over my cheeks and dropped into my lap. I have a vague remembrance of the Nice Boy's enthusiastically and brokenly begging me to marry him to-night and go to Venice with him to-morrow, and my ecstatically consenting to that or anything else. I am sure he held my hand during that period, for the rings cut in so the next day. And I think—indeed I am quite certain—but why consider one's self responsible for such things? At any rate, it has never happened since.
And when it was over we went up hand in hand, and the Nice Boy said, "What—what is your—your name?" And I stared at him, expecting to
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