Presently, when evening deepened, Auguste put his head in at the window and called them out to see an eclipse of Venus.
They stood in the dewy dusk and fragrance of the garden, and watched the star hover, moth-like, near and nearer to the moon, seeming to grow larger and more brilliant as it approached extinction, shining in audacious beauty. Then it touched, trembled, and disappeared.
"Served her right!" cried Auguste, fresh from the classics.
"But, Alice, where is Verheyden?" asked madame.
"He recollected Laurie's concert, and would go. I tried to detain him, but could not."
Verheyden hurried into town to the concert-hall, though by no means certain he might not be tempted to fling himself over the balcony. Avoiding acquaintances, he took a seat high up and apart, and looked down upon the audience. Such crowds had flocked to hear him in that lost life of his. Was it indeed lost, or did he dream?
Presently there was music. There came his fugues rolling in like overlapping billows. How he had played them when his mood had been to plunge in such a surge, he solitary, everything else washed away like sea-weed! He would never breast that tide again! Symphonies sailed over his head; but he could no more reach to touch their pinions. There was one he had named St. Michael's, from a sharp brightness that swung through it, sword-like. How he had wrestled with those angels!
Then Laurie, being loudly called, stood out, blushing before their praises.
Bless the boy! Only that day, bursting into tears, he had clasped Verheyden around the neck, saying: "Dear friend, my success hurts me like failure when I think of you."
To an encore he played "Comin' through the Rye," improvising variations in which the lovely melody hovered like Undine in the fountain, half veiled in that spray of music: an arch, enchanting thing.