He was in dress-clothes and tired and pale and his eyes were bright with wine. When he had been sitting for a little while, it grew too warm for him and he drew his chair to the balcony-door. There he sat and let his hands play with the red flowers.

 

Fru Adelheid did not see him when she entered.

 

She moved slowly and stopped in the middle of the room, when she discovered that he was not by the fireplace. She was surprised at this, but soon forgot it, in her gayety and her lingering excitement at the evening’s entertainment, with her[96] mind full of bright and clever phrases and the lights gleaming in her great eyes.

 

She sat down to the spinet¹ and laid her forehead against the keys. Something was singing inside her; her foot softly beat the carpet.

 

Then she sought among the music and sang:

 

Lenore, my heart is wrung².

Thine is so dauntless, thine is so young.

Tell me, Lenore, the truth confessing

(Which never were mine by guessing):

Whence do thy soul’s fresh fountains pour?

Where the mountains dip or the valleys soar?

Tell me, the truth confessing;

Open to me youth’s door.

Lenore, my heart is sad.

Thine is so constant, thine is so glad.

Teach me thine equable gait to borrow;

Teach me laughter and sorrow.

My heart is a desert, sterile³ and bare;

My heart is thine: do thou whisper there

Of a fount that shall flood to-morrow,

Of a sun that shall gild⁴ God’s air.

[97]She put one hand on the music-sheet and played with the other and hummed the tune⁵ again.

 

Then Cordt clapped his hands in applause. She started and her hand fell heavily on the keyboard:

 

“How you frightened me, Cordt!”

 

He came and stood beside the spinet. Fru Adelheid looked at his face and sighed. Then she stood up, put the music away and went and sat in a chair by the fireplace:

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