“Yes, probably. Who cares? Stella! Oh, my star!”
“My star, my star,” he cried again.
For one moment she could not but yield to him.
“Yes, yes,” she whispered; “but Martin, Martin,” and her mouth wreathed into laughter, “it is an evening party. You must not; you must not.”
He paused like a man dying of drought from whose lips the cup of water had been taken away.
“Party,” he cried; “what party? It is you and I, that is all.”
This was all unknown to her. She had loved him, the boy with the extraordinary eyes, the boy who played so magnificently, who laughed so much. But now there was roused something more than these. The piano-player was gone, he did not laugh, his eyes had never quite glowed like that, and there was in his face something she had never seen yet. The woman had awakened the man; this was his first full moment of consciousness. And, like all women for the first time face to face with the lover and the beloved, she was afraid. She had not till now seen his full fire.
“I am frightened,” she cried. “What have we done?”
But his answer came back like an echo to what she had not said, but what was behind her words.