It was bitterly cold.  We walked briskly, and parted at the door.

As I look back, I realize how much an egoist an emotional man can be, and in good faith be unconscious of it.

The day after the concert was Saturday—­a day on which I rarely saw her, as it was my habit to spend all Sunday with her.  I was always somewhat an epicure in my moral nature.  I liked to pet my inclinations, as I have seen good livers whet their appetites, by self-denial.

All day I was restless and depressed.

At the piano, with my violin in my hand, it was still that same haunting melody that bewitched my fingers.  Whatever I essayed led me, unconsciously, back to the same theme; and whenever that motif fell from my fingers her face appeared before my eyes so distinctly that I would have to dash my hand across them to wipe away the impression that it was the real face that was before me.  Afterward, when I was calmer, I knew that this was nothing singular since, whether I had ever reflected on the fact or not, she was rarely from my mind.

As I played that melody over and over again, it puzzled me more and more.  I could find nowhere within my memory anything that even reminded me of it.  Yet I was vaguely familiar with it.

When evening came on I was more restless than ever.  By nine o’clock I found it impossible to bear longer with my own company, and I started out.  I had no destination.  Something impelled me toward the Opera House, though I cared little for opera as a rule, that is, opera as we have it in America—­fashionable and Philistine.

I entered the auditorium—­the opera was “Faust”—­just in season to hear the last half of the third act.

As the sensuous passionate music swelled in the sultry air of the dark garden at Nuremburg, I listened, moved by it as I always am—­when I cannot see the over-dressed, lady-like Marguerite that goes a-starring in America.  My eyes wandered restlessly over the audience.  Suddenly there was a rushing, like the surging of waters, in my ears, which drowned the music, and I saw Rodriguez sitting carelessly in the front of a stage box.  His eyes were fixed on me, and I thought there was an expression of relief in them.

Shocked that the unexpected sight of the man should have such an effect on me, I pulled myself together with an effort.  The sound of the waters receded, the music rushed back, leaving me amazed at a condition in myself which should have rendered me so susceptible, in some subconscious way, to the undoubted magnetism of the man whose violin had so affected me the night before, and so haunted me all day, and in regard to whose composition I had an ill-defined, but insistent, theory which would intrude into my mind.

In vain I turned my eyes to the stage.  I could not forget his presence.  Every few minutes my glance, as if drawn by a magnet, would turn in his direction, and as often as that happened, whether he were leaning back to speak to some one hidden by the curtain, or watching the house, or listening intently to the music, I never failed to find that his eyes met mine.