"Was it singing, or was it saying,
Or a strange musical instrument playing?"
It came from the lady's room; and, pricked by curiosity, he pushed the lattice, pulled the curtain, and—first—saw Jacynth "in a rosy sleep along the floor with her head against the door." And in the middle of the room, on the seat of state,
"Was a queen—the Gipsy woman late!"
She was bending down over the lady, who, coiled up like a child, sat between her knees, clasping her hands over them, and with her chin set on those hands, was gazing up into the face of the old woman. That old woman now showed large and radiant eyes, which were bent full on the lady's, and seemed with every instant to grow wider and more shining. She was slowly fanning with her hands, in an odd measured motion—and the huntsman, puzzled and alarmed, was just about to spring to the rescue, when he was stopped by perceiving the expression on the lady's face.
"For it was life her eyes were drinking . . .
Life's pure fire, received without shrinking,
Into the heart and breast whose heaving
Told you no single drop they were leaving."
The life had passed into her very hair, which was thrown back, loose over each shoulder,
"And the very tresses shared in the pleasure,
Moving to the mystic measure,
Bounding as the bosom bounded."
He stopped short, perplexed, "as she listened and she listened." But all at once he felt himself struck by the self-same contagion:
"And I kept time to the wondrous chime,
Making out words and prose and rhyme,
Till it seemed that the music furled
Its wings like a task fulfilled, and dropped
From under the words it first had propped."
He could hear and understand, "word took word as hand takes hand"—and the Gipsy said: