Miss Ewes, never faltering, kept her keen eye fixed hard on her with a searching glance, as she ran over the keys in ever fresh combinations.
Faster, wilder, and stranger the music rose; but Elma sat still, her breast heaving hard, and her breath panting, yet otherwise as still and motionless as a statue. She knew Miss Ewes could tell exactly how she felt. She knew she was trying her; she knew she was tempting her to get up and dance; and yet, she was not one bit afraid of this strange weird woman, as she'd been afraid that sad morning at home of her own mother.
The composer went on fiercely for some minutes more, leaning close over the keyboard, and throwing her very soul, as Elma could plainly see, into the tips of her fingers. Then, suddenly she rose, and came over, well pleased, to the sofa where Elma sat. With a motherly gesture, she took Elma's hand; she smoothed her dark hair; she bent down with a tender look, in those strange grey eyes, and printed a kiss unexpectedly on the poor girl's forehead.
"Elma," she said, leaning over her, "do you know what that was? That was the Naga Snake Dance. It gave you an almost irresistible longing to rise, and hold the snake in your own hands, and coil his great folds around you. I could see how you felt. But you were strong enough to resist. That was very well done. You resisted even the force of my music, didn't you?"
Elma, trembling all over, but bursting with joy that she could speak of it at last without restraint to somebody, answered, in a very low and tremulous voice, "Yes, Miss Ewes, I resisted it."
Miss Ewes leant back in her place, and gazed at her long, with a very affectionate and motherly air. "Then I'm sure I don't know," she said at last, breaking out in a voice full of confidence, "why on earth you shouldn't marry this young man you're in love with!"
Elma's heart beat still harder and higher than ever.
"What young man?" she murmured low--just to test the enchantress.
And Miss Ewes made answer, without one moment's hesitation, "Why, of course, Cyril Waring!"
For a minute or two then, there was a dead silence. After that, Miss Ewes looked up and spoke again. "Have you felt it often?" she asked, without one word of explanation.