they knew that the overture had not lied. There, in dazzling white
flesh, was all it had promised; and when she called "Pyg-ma-lion!" how
their hearts thumped!--for they knew it was really them she was calling.

"Pyg-ma-lion! Pyg-ma-lion!"

It was as though Cleopatra called them from the tomb.

Their hands met. They could hear each other's blood singing. And was not
the play itself an allegory of their coming lives? Did not Galatea
symbolise all the sleeping beauty of the world that was to awaken, warm
and fragrant, at the kiss of their youth? And somewhere, too, shrouded
in enchanted quiet, such a white white woman waited for their kiss. In a
vision they saw life like the treasure cave of the Arabian thief; and
they said to their beating hearts that they had the secret of the magic
word, that the "open Sesame" was youth.

No fall of the curtain could hide the vision from their young eyes. It
transfigured the faces of their fellow-playgoers, crowding from the pit;
it made another stage of the embers of the sunset, a distant bridge of
silver far down the street. Then they took it with them to the tavern;
and to write of the solemn libations of that night would be to laugh or
cry. Only youth can be so radiantly ridiculous.

They had found their own corner. Turning down the gas, the fire played
at day and night with their faces. Imagine them in one of the flashes,
solemnly raising their glasses, hands clasped across the table, earnest
gleaming eyes holding each other above it.

"Old man, some day, somewhere, a woman like that!"