dare to reflect that he could never again approach her except with this
feeling. He did not dare to think of anything; he abandoned himself to
the sense that had begun with the invasion of her hair-bound myrtle in
the silent school-room, and seemed to have at last led her to his arms.
They were moving now in such perfect rhythm and unison that they seemed
scarcely conscious of motion. Once when they neared the open window he
caught a glimpse of the round moon rising above the solemn heights of
the opposite shore, and felt the cool breath of mountain and river sweep
his cheek and mingle a few escaped threads of her fair hair with
his own. With that glimpse and that sensation the vulgarity and the
tawdriness of their surroundings, the guttering candles in their
sconces, the bizarre figures, the unmeaning faces seemed to be whirled
far into distant space. They were alone with night and nature; it was
they who were still; all else had receded in a vanishing perspective of
dull reality, in which they had no part.

Play on, O waltz of Strauss! Whirl on, O love and youth! For you cannot
whirl so swiftly but that this receding world will return again with
narrowing circle to hem you in. Faster, O cracked clarionet! Louder,
O too brazen bassoon! Keep back, O dull and earthy environment, till
master and pupil have dreamed their foolish dream!

They are in fancy alone on the river-bank, only the round moon above
them and their linked shadows faintly fluttering in the stream. They
have drawn so closely together now that her arm is encircling his neck,
her soft eyes uplifted like the moon's reflection and drowning into his;
closer and closer till their hearts stop beating and their lips have met
in a first kiss. Faster, O little feet! swing clear, O Cressy's skirt
and keep the narrowing circle back! . . . They are again alone; the
judges' dais and the emblazoning of the State caught in a single