I stood bowing to the floor of tiny upturned heads, and jerking the ropes a little.  Then I let Sally’s rope go with a push, and it dropped away from me, and in a few seconds she had it safe in her strong hand.  She was taller than me, with a fuller figure, yet she looked quite small on her distant platform.  All the evening I had been thinking of fat old Mrs. Cartledge messing and slopping among cod and halibut on white tiles.  I could not get Bursley and my silly infancy out of my head.  I followed my feverish career from the age of fifteen, when that strange Something in me, which makes an artist, had first driven me forth to conquer two continents.  I thought of all the golden loves I had scorned, and my own love, which had been ignored, unnoticed, but which still obstinately burned.  I glanced downwards and descried Valdes precisely where Sally had said he would be.  Valdes, what a fool you were!  And I hated a fool.  I am one of those who can love and hate, who can love and despise, who can love and loathe the same object in the same moment.  Then I signalled to Sally to plunge, and my eyes filled with tears.  For, you see, somehow, in some senseless sentimental way, the thought of fat Mrs. Cartledge and my silly infancy had forced me to send Sally the red rope, not the blue one.  We exchanged ropes on alternate nights, but this was her night for the blue one.

She swung over, alighting accurately at my side with that exquisite outward curve of the spine which had originally attracted me to her.

‘You sent me the red one,’ she said to me, after she had acknowledged the applause.

‘Yes,’ I said.  ’Never mind; stick to it now you’ve got it.  Here’s the red light.  Have you seen Valdes?’

She nodded.

I took the blue light and clutched the blue rope.  Instead of murder—­suicide, since it must be one or the other.  And why not?  Indeed, I censured myself in that second for having meant to kill Sally.  Not because I was ashamed of the sin, but because the revenge would have been so pitiful and weak.  If Valdes the matchless was capable of passing me over and kneeling to the pretty thing——­

I stood ready.  The world was to lose that fineness, that distinction, that originality, that disturbing subtlety, which constituted Paquita Qita.  I plunged.

...  I was on the other platform.  The rope had held, then:  I remembered nothing of the flight except that I had passed near the upturned, pleasant face of Valdes.

The band stopped.  The lights of the hall were lowered.  All was dark.  I switched on my dazzling blue light; Sally switched on her red one.  I stood ready.  The rope could not possibly endure a second strain.  I waved to Sally and signalled to the conductor.  The world was to lose Paquita.  The drum began its formidable roll.  Whirrr!  I plunged, and saw the red star rushing towards me.  I snatched it and soared upwards.  The blue rope seemed to tremble.  As I came near the platform