When he had taken her hand at the Hospital Fete, her fingers, long and
warm and fine, had folded round his own with a singular confidence, an
involuntary enclosing friendliness; and now as he watched her
listening--did she hear something?--he saw her hand stretch out as though
commanding silence, the "hush!" of an alluring gesture.
This assuredly was not the girl who had run the Carillon Rapids, for that
adventuress was full of a vital force like a man's, and this girl had the
evanishing charm of a dryad.
Suddenly a change passed over her. She was as one who had listened and
had caught the note of song for which she waited; but her face clouded,
and the rapt look gave way to an immediate distress. The fantasy of the
wood-nymph underwent translation in Ingolby's mind; she was now like a
mortal, who, having been transformed, at immortal dictate was returning
to mortal state again.
To heighten the illusion, he thought he heard faint singing in the depths
of the wood. He put his hands to his ears for a moment, and took them
away again to make sure that it was really singing and not his
imagination; and when he saw Fleda's face again, there was fresh evidence
that his senses had not deceived him. After all, it was not strange that
some one should be singing in that deepest wood beyond.
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