better than Roy the ghostly music of silence; but to-night his brain was
filled with the music of words--not his own.

"Just listen to this," he said, without preamble. His eyes took on their
far-away look; his voice dropped a tone.

"The night is night of mid-May; the breeze is the breeze of the South.

"From my heart comes out and dances the image of my Desire.

"The gleaming vision flits on.

"I try to clasp it firmly, it eludes me and leads me astray.

"I seek what I cannot get; I get what I do not seek."

To that shining fragment of truth and beauty, his audience paid the
fitting tribute of silence; and his gaze--returning to earth--caught, in
Tara's eyes, a reflection of his exalted mood. Dyán saw it also; and
once more that red-hot wire pierced his heart.

It passed in a second; and Roy was speaking again--not to Tara, but to
her mother.

"Is there any poet, East or West, who can _quite_ so exquisitely capture
the essence of a mood, hold it lightly, like a fluttering bird, and as
lightly let it go?"

Lady Despard smiled approval at the simile. "In that one," she said, "he
has captured more than a mood--the very essence of life.--Have you met