While he listened enraptured, he saw the moon peek over the buildings in the next street. He softly got up and turned off the impertinent gas. Beyond a startled glance over her shoulder she made no objection. He was utterly fascinated by the movements of the bright head, now raised, now lowered, now turned towards the window in the changing moods of the songs.
Moonlight completed the working of the spell that was laid upon him. For the moment he ceased to be a rational being. He was exalted by emotion far out of himself. He experienced the sweetness of losing his own identity. It was as if a great wind had snatched him up into the universal ether, a region of warmth of colour and perfume. But he was conscious of a pull on him like that of the magnet for the iron, a pull that was neither to be questioned nor resisted.
At the last she turned around on the bench again, and her hands dropped in her lap. "That is all. I'm tired," she said like a child.
With a single movement the rapt youth was at her feet, weaving his arms about her waist. Unpremeditated words poured from him; words out of deeps in him of which up to that moment he was unconscious.
"Oh, you woman! You are the first in the world for me! I know you now! I feel your power! It's too much for me. And I'm glad of it! I have waited for you. I looked for you in so many girls' faces only to find emptiness. I began to doubt. Love was just a poetic fancy, I thought. But I have found it. Let me love you."
She was not surprised, nor angry. She gently tried to detach his arms. "Oh, hush! hush!" she murmured. "It is not me! It is just the music!"
"It is you! It is you!" he protested. "I knew it when I first saw you. You or none!"
"But how silly!" she said in a warm, low voice. "You have seen me twice."
"What difference does that make?" he said impatiently. "One cannot be mistaken about a thing like this. I love you with all my heart. It only takes a second to happen, but it can never be undone while I live. You have entered into me and taken possession. If you left me I should be no more than a shell of a man!"
"Ah, but be sensible!" she begged him. He thought he felt her fingertips brush his hair. "Try to be sensible. Think of me."