past him with a sound of rustling and, retreating with light footsteps
down the passage behind him, was gone. A breath of warm, scented air was
wafted to his nostrils.

Vezin caught his breath for an instant and paused, stockstill, half
leaning against the wall--and then almost ran down the remaining
distance and entered his room with a rush, locking the door hurriedly
behind him. Yet it was not fear that made him run: it was excitement,
pleasurable excitement. His nerves were tingling, and a delicious glow
made itself felt all over his body. In a flash it came to him that this
was just what he had felt twenty-five years ago as a boy when he was in
love for the first time. Warm currents of life ran all over him and
mounted to his brain in a whirl of soft delight. His mood was suddenly
become tender, melting, loving.

The room was quite dark, and he collapsed upon the sofa by the window,
wondering what had happened to him and what it all meant. But the only
thing he understood clearly in that instant was that something in him
had swiftly, magically changed: he no longer wished to leave, or to
argue with himself about leaving. The encounter in the passage-way had
changed all that. The strange perfume of it still hung about him,
bemusing his heart and mind. For he knew that it was a girl who had
passed him, a girl's face that his fingers had brushed in the darkness,
and he felt in some extraordinary way as though he had been actually
kissed by her, kissed full upon the lips.

Trembling, he sat upon the sofa by the window and struggled to collect
his thoughts. He was utterly unable to understand how the mere passing
of a girl in the darkness of a narrow passage-way could communicate so
electric a thrill to his whole being that he still shook with the