20
U niversity
of
O regon M onthly
aimless design of the song. She èeemed to live ’over, again thé ages
of the past, when 'the world was young, swiftly and yet intensely,
and meanwhile the music changed, rising to stormy fullness'for a
moment, carried with a sweeping rush on wings of the hurricane,
and then subsiding to the gentle drip,of raindrops falling from the
leaves after the storm had passed.
She seemed to hear the howl of wolves floating, down white
silent stretches of the timber. Deeper, fuller, grew the melody, be
ginning to throb with the sensuous yearning of mating time Figures
flitted through the moonlight, the dark-skinned primor dial savage
wooing his bride by force or by strength. Always the old, new
song of desire, of passion, of fulfillment.A Love in which seemed
concentrated, the desires of countless m illio n s ^ things that had
lived and died, love idolatrous, and flaming, knowing no law «but
one unto itself. Love a world in which time and space were forgot
in the voluptuous estacy that smothered thought and remembrance,
making all subservient to the gratification of its supreme longing.
Enchantment had captured Mary and'field her a willing prisoner.
The last strains of the ardent music finished in a chord whose
throbbing intensity found response in every fibre of her being.
The master of the music came to her and like one in a dream
she wandered with him through the-moonlight. He spoke-of many
things,, his speech^ like hi's music, clbthing',every thought in poetry.
He conjured with a voice whose sound, like the taste, of the. lotus,
lulled conscience into forgetfulness; , M ary. scarcely noticed that
she was held close in the tempters arms, that his lips were , approach
ing closer and closer to hers. She d id not seem, conscious that
the old arbor into which they had come was familiar, but entranced,
by the magic of the moment, was sinking lower into the snare
when a sound clove the silken web and it seemed to -slip from her.
The sound/of a bell th at spoke of' purity, and of d u ty -an d that
awoke the,, sturdy Scotch, virtues;, that had lane ^stricken with, the
paralysis of despair. To many • who heard the bell it meant only
the call to the regular weekly prayer meeting, but to .Mary it was
the voice of her ancestral heritage- speaking in terms, of unmeasured
reproach. This stern uprightness would not be conquered even-
by the spell of a matchless art. She had risen at the sound and it
seemed to the man that she grew very tall, and still and white.-
Leave me, she commanded, and' he slunk from her -presence
into the night.