upon her without any too great difficulty.
She entered the hall with him during a lull in the dance. She

made an awkward, imperious little bow as she went in. She was a
homely woman, with a small weazened face and body and eyes that

glowed. She had absolutely no taste in dress, and wore a batch of
rusty black lace with a bunch of artificial violets pinned to the

side of her hair.
"Ask Mrs. Pontellier what she would like to hear me play," she

requested of Robert. She sat perfectly still before the piano, not
touching the keys, while Robert carried her message to Edna at the

window. A general air of surprise and genuinesatisfaction fell
upon every one as they saw the pianist enter. There was a settling

down, and a prevailing air of expectancy everywhere. Edna was a
trifle embarrassed at being thus signaled out for the imperious

little woman's favor. She would not dare to choose, and begged
that Mademoiselle Reisz would please herself in her selections.

Edna was what she herself called very fond of music. Musical
strains, well rendered, had a way of evoking pictures in her mind.

She sometimes liked to sit in the room of mornings when Madame
Ratignolle played or practiced. One piece which that lady played

Edna had entitled "Solitude." It was a short, plaintive, minor
strain. The name of the piece was something else, but she called

it "Solitude." When she heard it there came before her imagination
the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the

seashore. He was naked. His attitude was one of hopeless
resignation as he looked toward a distant bird winging its flight

away from him.
Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad in

an Empire gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down a
long avenue between tall hedges. Again, another reminded her of

children at play, and still another of nothing on earth but a
demure lady stroking a cat.

The very first chords which Mademoiselle Reisz struck upon the
piano sent a keen tremor down Mrs. Pontellier's spinalcolumn. It

was not the first time she had heard an artist at the piano.
Perhaps it was the first time she was ready, perhaps the first time

her being was tempered to take an impress of the abiding truth.
She waited for the material pictures which she thought would

gather and blaze before her imagination. She waited in vain. She
saw no pictures of solitude, of hope, of longing, or of despair.

But the very passions themselves were aroused within her soul,
swaying it, lashing it, as the waves daily beat upon her splendid

body. She trembled, she was choking, and the tears blinded her.
Mademoiselle had finished. She arose, and bowing her stiff,

lofty bow, she went away, stopping for neither, thanks nor
applause. As she passed along the gallery she patted Edna upon the

shoulder.
"Well, how did you like my music?" she asked. The young woman

was unable to answer; she pressed the hand of the pianist
convulsively. Mademoiselle Reisz perceived her agitation and even

her tears. She patted her again upon the shoulder as she said:
"You are the only one worth playing for. Those others? Bah!"

and she went shuffling and sidling on down the gallery toward her
room.

But she was mistaken about "those others." Her playing had
aroused a fever of enthusiasm. "What passion!" "What an artist!"

"I have always said no one could play Chopin like Mademoiselle
Reisz!" "That last prelude! Bon Dieu! It shakes a man!"

It was growing late, and there was a general disposition to
disband. But some one, perhaps it was Robert, thought of a bath at

that mystic hour and under that mystic moon.
X

At all events Robert proposed it, and there was not a
dissenting voice. There was not one but was ready to follow when

he led the way. He did not lead the way, however, he directed the
way; and he himself loitered behind with the lovers, who had

betrayed a disposition to linger and hold themselves apart. He
walked between them, whether with malicious or mischievous intent

was not wholly clear, even to himself.
The Pontelliers and Ratignolles walked ahead; the women

leaning upon the arms of their husbands. Edna could hear Robert's
voice behind them, and could sometimes hear what he said. She

wondered why he did not join them. It was unlike him not to. Of
late he had sometimes held away from her for an entire day,

redoubling his devotion upon the next and the next, as though to
make up for hours that had been lost. She missed him the days when

some pretext served to take him away from her, just as one misses
the sun on a cloudy day without having thought much about the sun

when it was shining.
The people walked in little groups toward the beach. They

talked and laughed; some of them sang. There was a band playing
down at Klein's hotel, and the strains reached them faintly,

tempered by the distance. There were strange, rare odors abroad--
a tangle of the sea smell and of weeds and damp, new-plowed earth,

mingled with the heavy perfume of a field of white blossoms
somewhere near. But the night sat lightly upon the sea and the

land. There was no weight of darkness; there were no shadows. The
white light of the moon had fallen upon the world like the mystery

and the softness of sleep.
Most of them walked into the water as though into a native element.

The sea was quiet now, and swelled lazily in broad billows that melted
into one another and did not break except upon the beach in little

foamy crests that coiled back like slow, white serpents.
Edna had attempted all summer to learn to swim. She had

received instructions from both the men and women; in some
instances from the children. Robert had pursued a system of

lessons almost daily; and he was nearly at the point of
discouragement in realizing the futility of his efforts. A certain

ungovernable dread hung about her when in the water, unless there
was a hand near by that might reach out and reassure her.

But that night she was like the little tottering, stumbling,
clutching child, who of a sudden realizes its powers, and walks for

the first time alone, boldly and with over-confidence. She could
have shouted for joy. She did shout for joy, as with a sweeping

stroke or two she lifted her body to the surface of the water.
A feeling of exultationovertake的过去式">overtook her, as if some power of

significant import had been given her to control the working of her
body and her soul. She grew daring and reckless, overestimating

her strength. She wanted to swim far out, where no woman had swum
before.

Her unlooked-for achievement was the subject of wonder,
applause, and admiration. Each one congratulated himself that his

special teachings had accomplished this desired end.
"How easy it is!" she thought. "It is nothing," she said

aloud; "why did I not discover before that it was nothing. Think
of the time I have lost splashing about like a baby!" She would not

join the groups in their sports and bouts, but intoxicated with her
newly conquered power, she swam out alone.

She turned her face seaward to gather in an impression of
space and solitude, which the vast expanse of water, meeting and

melting with the moonlit sky, conveyed to her excited fancy. As
she swam she seemed to be reaching out for the unlimited in which

to lose herself.
Once she turned and looked toward the shore, toward the people

she had left there. She had not gone any great distance that is,
what would have been a great distance for an experienced swimmer.

But to her unaccustomed vision the stretch of water behind her
assumed the aspect of a barrier which her unaided strength

would never be able to overcome.
A quick vision of death smote her soul, and for a second of