He had hypnotized himself, he had acted for a while as
though he was one of life's realities; but suddenly there passed through
his veins the chilling sense of the unreal, that he was only acting a
part, as he had ever done in his life, and that the man before him could,
with a wave of the hand, raise the curtain on all his disguises and
pretences. It was only for an instant, however, for there swept through
him the feeling that Fleda had roused in him--the first real passion, the
first true love--if what such as he felt can be love--that he had ever
known; and he saw her again as she was in the but in the wood defying
him, ready to defend herself against him. All his erotic anger and
melodramatic fervour were alive in him once more.
He was again a man with a wrong, a lover dispossessed. On the instant his
veins filled with passionate blood. The Roscian strain in him had its own
tragic force and reality.
"My home is where my own is, and you, have taken my own from me, as I
said," he burst out. "There was all the world for you, but I had only my
music and my wife, and you have taken my wife from me. 'Mi Duvel', you
have taken, but you shall give back again, or there will be only one of
us in the world! The music I have played for you--that has told you all:
the thing that was music from the beginning of Time, the will of the
First of All.
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