yellow. The flower, like something evil generated by a malignant spell, rose quivering on its slender stalk out of the fragile tube which might have been blown by some skilful artificer from a liquid gem.

'Well, I prefer roses,' observed Elena, replacing the orchid with a gesture of repulsion, very different from her former one of curiosity. She then joined in the general conversation.

Donna Francesca was speaking of the last reception at the Austrian Embassy.

'Did you see Madame de Cahen?' asked Elena. 'She had on a dress of yellow tulle covered with humming birds with ruby eyes—a gorgeous dancing bird-cage. And Lady Ouless—did you notice her?—in a white gauze skirt draped with sea-weed and little red fishes, and under the sea-weed and fish another skirt of sea-green gauze—Did you see it?—a most effective aquarium!' and she laughed merrily.

Andrea was at a loss to understand this sudden volubility These frivolous and malicious things were uttered by the same voice which, but a few moments, ago had stirred his soul to its very depths; they came from the same lips which, in silence, had seemed to him like the mouth of the Medusa of Leonardo, that human flower of the soul rendered divine by the fire of passion and the anguish of death. What then was the true essence of this creature? Had she perception and consciousness of her manifold changes, or was she impenetrable to herself and shut from her own mystery? In her expression, her manifestation of herself, how much was[9] artificial and how much spontaneous? The desire to fathom this secret pierced him even through the delight experienced by the proximity of the woman whom he was beginning to love. But his wretched habit of analysis for ever prevented him losing sight of himself, though every time he yielded to its temptation he was punished, like Psyche for her curiosity, by the swift withdrawal of love, the frowns of the beloved object and the cessation of all delights. Would it not be better to abandon oneself frankly to the first ineffable sweetness of new-born love? He saw Elena in the act of placing her lips to a glass of pale gold wine like liquid honey. He selected from among his own glasses the one the servant had filled with the same wine, and drank at the same moment that she did. They replaced their glasses on the table together. The similarity of the action made them turn to one another, and the glance they exchanged inflamed them far more than the wine.

[9]

'You are very silent,' said Elena, affecting a 

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