The words, simply human, divinely just, assailed her ears, and by light of the intuition—the superconsciousness that was dominating her—the whole truth of this confessed love poured in upon her soul. She saw the halo about the head of the little singer, she appreciated the sublime giving of herself that cried in the music of the song. It was no mere sentiment on the lips of this fair child, it was the proclamation of a tremendous fact.
She leaned back against the wall, lips set, hands clasped. She clung to the rock of her theories like a drowning man, and like the drowning man she realized the imminence of the inundation that threatened her.
The music swelled, and now it was not Jacqueline alone who sang; M. Cartel's voice rose, completing, perfecting the higher feminine notes, blending with them as the music of wind or running water might harmonize with the singing of a bird. It was not art but nature that was at work in the words:
'Nous sommes tous les amants, fidèles a leur serment! Ah, le divin roman!
Nous sommes toutes les âmes que brûle le sainte flamme du désire!
Ah, la parole idéale dont s'enivre mon corps tout entier!
Dis encore ta chanson de délice! Ta chanson victorieuse, ta chanson de printemps!'
The duet wore on, enthralling in its closeness to common human life, with its touches of tears, its touches of laughter, its hints of tenderness and bursts of passion. Not one face but had softened in comprehension as Louise painted the picture of her home—of the gentle father, the scolding mother, the little daily frictions that wear patience thin; not one heart but had leaped when passion broke a way through the song, mounting, mounting as upon wings, until Louise in her ecstasy of love and joy and incredulity exclaims:
'C'est le paradis! C'est une féerie!'
And Julian answers:
'Non! C'est la vie! l'Eternelle, la toute puissante vie!'
It was the supreme, the psychological moment! The duet continued, but Maxine heard no further words. They echoed and re-echoed in her brain, they obsessed her, lifting her to a sublimal state.