It was a very small party, and the hostess wore her gayest countenance.  A delightful evening, from the social point of view; for Piers Otway a time of self-forgetfulness in the pleasures of sight and hearing.  He could have little private talk with Irene; she did not talk much with anyone; but he saw her, he heard her voice, he lived in the glory of her presence.  Moreover, she consented to play.  Of her skill as a pianist, Otway could not judge; what he heard was Music, music absolute, the very music of the spheres.  When it ceased, Mrs. Borisoff chanced to look at him; he was startlingly pale, his eyes wide as if in vision more than mortal.

“I leave town to-morrow,” said his hostess, as he took leave.  “Some friends are going with me.  You shall hear how we get on at the Castle.”

Perhaps her look was meant to supplement this bare news.  It seemed to offer reassurance.  Did she understand his look of entreaty in reply?

Music breathed about him in the lonely hours.  It exalted his passion, lulled the pains of desire, held the flesh subservient to spirit.  What is love, says the physiologist, but ravening sex?  If so, in Piers Otway’s breast the primal instinct had undergone strange transformation.  How wrought?—­he asked himself.  To what destiny did it correspond, this winged love soaring into the infinite?  This rapture of devotion, this utter humbling of self, this ardour of the poet soul singing a fellow-creature to the heaven of heavens—­by what alchemy comes it forth from blood and tissue?  Nature has no need of such lyric life her purpose is well achieved by humbler instrumentality.  Romantic lovers are not the ancestry of noblest lines.

And if—­as might well be—­his love were defeated, fruitless, what end in the vast maze of things would his anguish serve?

CHAPTER XXXIV

After his day’s work, he had spent an hour among the pictures at Burlington House.  He was lingering before an exquisite landscape, unwilling to change this atmosphere of calm for the roaring street, when a voice timidly addressed him: 

“Mr. Otway!”

How altered!  The face was much, much older, and in some indeterminable way had lost its finer suggestions.  At her best, Olga Hannaford had a distinction of feature, a singularity of emotional expression, which made her beautiful in Olga Florio the lines of visage were far less subtle, and classed her under an inferior type.  Transition from maidenhood to what is called the matronly had been too rapid; it was emphasised by her costume, which cried aloud in its excess of modish splendour.

“How glad I am to see you again!” she sighed tremorously, pressing his hand with fervour, gazing at him with furtive directness.  “Are you living in England now?”

Piers gave an account of himself.  He was a little embarrassed but quite unagitated.  A sense of pity averted his eyes after the first wondering look.