there were moments when she could hardly restrain herself from jumping to her feet and begging of him to stop....  The servant brought in the tea, and she thought she would feel better when the music ceased.  But neither did the silence nor the tea help her.  He sat opposite her, his eyes fixed upon her, that half-kindly, half-cynical face of his showing through the gold of his moustache.  He seemed to know that she could not follow the conversation, and seemed determined to drive the malady that was devouring her to a head.  He continued to speak of the motive of the love call, how it is interwoven with the hunting fanfare; when the fanfare dies in the twilight, how it is then heard in the dark loneliness of the garden.  She heard him speak of the handkerchief motive, of thirty violins playing three notes in ever precipitated rhythm, until we feel that the world reels behind the woman, that only one thing exists for her—­Tristan.  A giddiness gathered in Evelyn’s brain, and she fell back in her chair, slightly to the left side, and letting her hand slip towards him, said, with a beseeching look—­

“I cannot go on talking, I am too tired.”

It seemed as if she were going to faint, and this made it easy and natural for him to take her hand, to put his arm about her, and then to whisper—­

“Evelyn, dear, what is the matter?”

She opened her eyes; their look was sufficient answer.

“Dearest Evelyn,” he said; and bending over, he kissed her on the cheek.

“This is very foolish of me,” she said, and throwing her arm about his neck, she kissed him on the mouth.  “But you are fond of me?” she said impulsively, laying her hand on his shoulder.  It was a movement full of affectionate intimacy.

“Yes,” he said, moving her face again towards him.  “I love you, I’ve always loved you.”

“No,” she said, “you didn’t, not always; I know when you began to care for me.”

“When?”

“When you returned from Greece, at the moment when you said you wanted me to like you.  Is it not true?”

Owen dared not tell her that it was at the moment of kissing her that he had really begun to love her.  In that moment he had entered into her atmosphere; it was fragrant as a flower, and it had decided him to use every effort to become her lover.

“No,” she said, “you must not kiss me again.”

She got up from the low wicker chair; he followed her, and they sat close together on two low seats.  He put his arm round her and said—­

“I love to kiss you....  Why do you turn away your head?”

“Because it is wrong; I shall be miserable to-night.”

“You don’t think it wrong to kiss me?”

“Yes, I do.”

Then turning her face to his, she kissed him.

“Who taught you to kiss like that?”

“No one, I never kissed anyone before—­father, of course.  You know what I mean.”

“She’ll be an adorable mistress,” he thought, “and in four years the greatest singer in England.  I shall get very fond of her.  I like her very much as it is, and when she gets over her religious scruples—­when I’ve reformed her—­she’ll be enchanting.  It is lucky she met me; without me she’d have come to nothing.”