What they talked of, even though it was Sylvia who spoke, seemed
external to the spirit of the hour. They seemed to have reached a point,
some momentary halting-place, where speech and thought even lay outside,
and the need of the spirit was merely to exist and be conscious of
its existence. Sometimes for a moment his past life with its
self-repression, its mute yearnings, its chrysalis stirrings, formed a
mist that dispersed again, sometimes for a moment in wonder at what
the future held, what joys and troubles, what achings, perhaps, and
anguishes, the unknown knocked stealthily at the door of his mind, but
then stole away unanswered and unwelcome, and for that hour, while Mrs.
Falbe finished with Lady Ursula, while Hermann smoked and sighed like a
sentimental German, and while he and Sylvia sat, speaking occasionally,
but more often silent, he was in some kind of Nirvana for which its own
existence was everything. Movement had ceased: he held his breath while
that divine pause lasted.
When it was broken, there was no shattering of it: it simply died away
like a long-drawn chord as Mrs. Falbe closed her book.
"She died," she said, "I knew she would."
Hermann gave a great shout of laughter.
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