“So much for my feelings.  What of hers?  They seemed very like my own.  That she admired me, and was pleased to be with me, was certain.  That she had a particle of fiery love for me I did not, could not believe.  And it was probably this very sense of her calmness which kept my feelings quiet.  For love is a flame which often can be kindled only by contact with flame.  Certainly this is so in proud, reserved natures, which are chilled by any contact with temperature not higher than their own.

“On her return, however, from that absence I have mentioned, I was not a little fluttered by an obvious change in her manner; an impression which subsequent meetings only served to confirm.  Although still very quiet, her manner had become more tender, and it had that delicious shyness which is the most exquisite of flatteries, as it is one of the most enchanting of graces.  I saw her tremble slightly beneath my voice, and blush beneath my gaze.

“There was no mistaking these signs.  It was clear that she loved me; and it was no less clear that I, taking fire at this discovery, was myself rapidly falling in love.  I will not keep you from my story by idle reflections.  Take another cigar.”  He rose and paced up and down the room in silence.

VII

AGALMA

“At this juncture there arrived from Paris the woman to whom the great sorrow of my life is due.  A fatalist might read in her appearance at this particular moment the signs of a prearranged doom.  A few weeks later, and her arrival would have been harmless; I should have been shielded from all external influence by the absorbing force of love.  But, alas! this was not to be.  My fate had taken another direction.  The woman had arrived whose shadow was to darken the rest of my existence.  That woman was Agalma Liebenstein.

“How is it that the head which we can only see surrounded with a halo, or a shadow, when the splendors of achievement or the infamy of shame instruct our eyes, is by the uninstructed eye observed as wholly vulgar?  We all profess to be physiognomists; how is it we are so lamentably mistaken in our judgments?  Here was a woman in whom my ignorant eyes saw nothing at all remarkable except golden hair of unusual beauty.  When I say golden, I am not speaking loosely.  I do not mean red or flaxen hair, but hair actually resembling burnished gold more than anything else.  Its ripples on her brow caught the light like a coronet.  This was her one beauty, and it was superb.  For the rest, her features were characterless.  Her figure was tall and full; not graceful, but sweepingly imposing.  At first I noticed nothing about her except the braided splendor of her glorious hair.”

He rose, and went into his bedroom, from which he returned with a small trinket-box in his hand.  This he laid open on the table, disclosing a long strand of exquisite fair hair lying on a cushion of dark-blue velvet.