She, with jealous pangs at this goodnight hour, often thought already of what a lover he would be when the time came—­the time for her to be pushed aside, to drop out.  These last moments of every night were for love; nothing lived in him but love.  She said to herself that he was the born lover.

As he now withdrew his arms, he sat looking into her eyes with his face close to hers.  Then leaning over, he began to measure his face upon her face, starting with the forehead, and being very particular when he got to the long eyelashes, then coming down past the nose.  They were very silly and merry about the measuring of the noses.  The noses would not fit the one upon the other, not being flat enough.  He began to indulge his mischievous, teasing mood: 

“Suppose he doesn’t like my voice!”

She laughed the idea to scorn.

“Suppose he wouldn’t take me!”

“Ah, but he will take you.”

“If he wouldn’t have me, you’d never want to see me any more, would you?”

She strained him to her heart and rocked to and fro over him.

“This is what I could most have wished in all the world,” she said, holding him at arm’s-length with idolatry.

“Not more than a fine house and servants and a greenhouse and a carriage and horses and a new piano—­not more than everything you used to have!”

“More than anything!  More than anything in this world!”

He returned to the teasing.

“If he doesn’t take me, I’m going to run away.  You won’t want ever to see me any more.  And then nobody will ever know what becomes of me because I couldn’t sing.”

She strained him again to herself and murmured over him: 

“My chorister!  My minstrel!  My life!”

“Good night and pleasant dreams!” he said, with his arms around her neck finally.  “Good night and sweet sleep!”

* * * * *

Everything was quiet.  She had tipped to his bedside and stood looking at him after slumber had carried him away from her, a little distance away.

“My heavenly guest!” she murmured.  “My guest from the singing stars of God!”

Though worn out with the strain and excitements of the day, she was not yet ready for sleep.  She must have the luxuries of consciousness; she must tread the roomy spaces of reflection and be soothed in their largeness.  And so she had gone to her windows and had remained there for a long time looking out upon the night.

The street beneath was dimly lighted.  Traffic had almost ceased.  Now and then a car sped past.  The thoroughfare along here is level and broad and smooth, and being skirted on one side by the park, it offers to speeding vehicles the illusive freedom of a country road.  Across the street at the foot of the park a few lights gleamed scant amid the April foliage.  She began at the foot of the hill and followed the line of them upward, upward over the face of the rock, leading this way and that way, but always upward.  There on the height in the darkness loomed the cathedral.