There was dancing again that night—­more couples this time, and a violin beside the piano; and she had on a black frock.  He had never seen her in black.  Her face and neck were powdered over their sunburn.  The first sight of that powder gave him a faint shock.  He had not somehow thought that ladies ever put on powder.  But if she did—­then it must be right!  And his eyes never left her.  He saw the young German violinist hovering round her, even dancing with her twice; watched her dancing with others, but all without jealousy, without troubling; all in a sort of dream.  What was it?  Had he been bewitched into that queer state, bewitched by the gift of that flower in his coat?  What was it, when he danced with her, that kept him happy in her silence and his own?  There was no expectation in him of anything that she would say, or do—­no expectation, no desire.  Even when he wandered out with her on to the terrace, even when they went down the bank and sat on a bench above the fields where the peasants had been scything, he had still no feeling but that quiet, dreamy adoration.  The night was black and dreamy too, for the moon was still well down behind the mountains.  The little band was playing the next waltz; but he sat, not moving, not thinking, as if all power of action and thought had been stolen out of him.  And the scent of the flower in his coat rose, for there was no wind.  Suddenly his heart stopped beating.  She had leaned against him, he felt her shoulder press his arm, her hair touch his cheek.  He closed his eyes then, and turned his face to her.  He felt her lips press his mouth with a swift, burning kiss.  He sighed, stretched out his arms.  There was nothing there but air.  The rustle of her dress against the grass was all!  The flower—­it, too, was gone.

X

Not one minute all that night did Anna sleep.  Was it remorse that kept her awake, or the intoxication of memory?  If she felt that her kiss had been a crime, it was not against her husband or herself, but against the boy—­the murder of illusion, of something sacred.  But she could not help feeling a delirious happiness too, and the thought of trying to annul what she had done did not even occur to her.

He was ready, then, to give her a little love!  Ever so little, compared to hers, but still a little!  There could be no other meaning to that movement of his face with the closed eyes, as if he would nestle it down on her breast.

Was she ashamed of her little manoeuvres of these last few days—­ ashamed of having smiled at the young violinist, of that late return from the mountain climb, of the flower she had given him, of all the conscious siege she had laid since the evening her husband came in and sat watching her, without knowing that she saw him?  No; not really ashamed!  Her remorse rose only from the kiss.  It hurt to think of that, because it was death, the final extinction