tram-cars. She shivered and shaded her face with her fan. There was
something remote from humanity in his speech. He continued with
increasing vivacity:--

"Music is a burning torch. And music, like ideas, can slay the brain.
Wagner borrowed his harmonic fire from the torch of Chopin--" She broke
in:--

"Don't talk of Chopin! Tell me more of Van Kuyp. Why do you call him
_yours_?" Her curiosity was become pain. It mastered her prudence.

"In far-away Celtic legends there may be found a lovely belief that our
thoughts are independent realities, that they go about in the void
seeking creatures to control. They are as bodiless souls. When they
descend into a human being they possess his moods, in very existence--"

"And Richard!" she muttered. His words swayed her like strange music;
the country through which they were passing was a blank; she could see
but two luminous points--the nocturnal eyes of Elvard Rentgen, as he
spun his cobwebs in the moonshine. She did not fear him; nothing could
frighten her now. One desire held her. If it were unslaked, she felt she
would collapse. It was to know the truth, to be told everything! He put
restraining fingers on her ungloved hand; they seemed like cold, fat
spiders. Yet she was only curious, with a curiosity that murdered the
spirit within her.

"To transfuse these shadows, my dear Alixe, has been one of my delights,
for I can project my futile desires into another's soul. I am denied the
gift of music-making, so this is my revenge on nature for bungling its
job. If Richard had genius, my intervention would be superfluous. He has