How well do I remember.

It seemed to me that I had known her a long, long time.  There was something about her that was not seduction; but far, far above it.  Somewhere I had seen her, had known her.  She was looking and she was waiting for me.  There was something about her that was super feminine.  I thought it then, and I say it now.

Just then her glance came my way.  She smiled, and nodded; there was a note of sadness in her voice.

“Harry Wendel!”

There is no accounting for my action, nor my wonder; she knew me.  Then it was true!  I was not mistaken!  Somewhere I had seen her.  I felt a vague and dim rush of dreamy recollections.  Ah, that was the answer!  She was a girl of dreams and phantoms.  Even then I knew it; she was not a woman; not as we conceive her; she was some materialisation out of Heaven.  Why do I talk so?  Ah! this strange beauty that is woman!  From the very first she held me in the thrall that has no explanation.

“Do we dance?” she asked simply.

The next moment I had her in my arms and we were out among the dancers.  That my actions were queer and entirely out of reason never occurred to me.  There was a call about her beautiful body and in her eyes that I could not answer.  There was a fact between us, some strange bond that was beyond even passion.  I danced, and in an extreme emotion of happiness.  A girl out of the dreams and the ether—­a sprig of life woven out of the moonbeams!

“Do you know me?” she asked as we danced.

“Yes,” I answered, “and no.  I have seen you; but I do not remember; you come from the sunshine.”

She laughed prettily.

“Do you always talk like this?”

“You are out of my dreams,” I answered:  “it is sufficient.  But who are you?”

She held back her pretty head and looked at me; her lips drooped slightly at the corners, a sad smile, and tender, in the soft wonderful depths of her eyes—­a pity.

“Harry,” she asked, “are you going to wear this ring?”

So that was it.  The ring and the maiden.  What was the bond?  There was weirdness in its colour, almost cabalistic—­a call out of the occult.  The strange beauty of the girl, her remarkable presence, and her concern.  Whoever and whatever she was her anxiety was not personal.  In some way she was woven up with this ring and poor Watson.

“I think I shall,” I answered.

Again the strange querulous pity and hesitation; her eyes grew darker, almost pleading.

“You won’t give it to me?”

How near I came to doing it I shall not tell.  It would be hard to say it.  I knew vaguely that she was playing; that I was the plaything.  It is hard for a man to think of himself as being toyed with.  She was certain; she was confident of my weakness.  It was resentment, perhaps, and pride of self that gave the answer.

“I think I shall keep it.”

“Do you know the danger, Harry?  It is death to wear it.  A thousand perils—­”