what dreadful disaster would it not end! ... I cared not in that
marvellous hectic hour how it would end. I knew I had been blessed beyond
the common lot of women. I knew that I was living more intensely and more
fully than I could have hoped to live. I knew that my experience was a
supreme experience, and that another such could not be contained in my
life.... And Diaz was so close, so at one with me.... A hush descended on
the music, and I found myself playing strange disturbing chords with the
left hand, irregularly repeated, opposing the normal accent of the bar,
and becoming stranger and more disturbing. And Diaz was playing an air
fragmentary and poignant. The lovers were waiting; the very atmosphere of
the garden was drenched with an agonizing and exquisite anticipation. The
whole world stood still, expectant, while the strange chords fought
gently and persistently against the rhythm.

'Hear the beating of their hearts,' Diaz' whisper floated over the
chords.

It was too much. The obsession of his presence, reinforced by the
vibrating of his wistful, sensuous voice, overcame me suddenly. My hands
fell from the keyboard. He looked at me--and with what a glance!

'I can bear no more,' I cried wildly. 'It is too beautiful, too
beautiful!'

And I rushed from the piano, and sat down in an easy-chair, and hid my
face in my hands.

He came to me, and bent over me.

'Magda,' he whispered, 'show me your face.' With his hands he delicately