But still with infatuation I watched the conductor, though I suffered not my eyes to wander to his face; I dared not look at him, I felt too awful. He was suddenly surrounded by gentlemen, the members of the committee. I knew they were there, bustling, skurrying, and I listened to their intrusive tones. As the chorus pressed by me I was obliged to advance a little, and I heard, in a quiet foreign accent, delicate as clear, these words: "Nothing, thank you, but a glass of pure water." Trembling, hot, and dizzy, almost mad with impatience, I pushed through the crowd; it was rather thinner now, but I had to drive my head against many a knot, and when I could not divide the groups I dived underneath their arms. I cannot tell how I got out, but I literally leaped the stairs; in two or three steps I cleared the gallery. Once in the refreshment room, I snatched a glass jug that stood in a pail filled with lumps of ice, and a tumbler, and made away with them before the lady who was superintending that table had turned her head. I had never a stumbling footstep, and though I sprang back again, I did not spill a drop. I knew the hall was half empty, so taking a short way that led me into it, I came to the bottom of the orchestra. I stood the tumbler upon a form, and filling it to the brim, left the beaker behind me and rushed up the orchestra stairs. He was still there, leaning upon the score, with his hands upon his face, and his eyes hidden. I advanced very quietly, but he heard me, and without raising himself from the desk, let his hands fall, elevated his countenance, and watched me as I approached him. I trembled so violently then, taken with a fresh shudder of excitement, that I could not lift the tumbler to present it. I saw a person from the other side advancing with a tray, and dreading to be supplanted, I looked up with desperate entreaty. The unknown stretched his arm and raised the glass, taking it from me, to his lips. Around those lips a shadowy half-smile was playing, but they were white with fatigue or excitement, and he drank the water instantly, as if athirst. Then he returned to me the glass, empty, with a gentle but absent air, paused one moment, and now, as if restored to himself, fully regarded me, and fully smiled. Down-gazing, those deep-colored eyes upon me seemed distant as the stars of heaven; but there was an almost pitying sweetness in his tone as he addressed me. I shall never forget that tone, nor how my eyelids quivered with the longing want to weep. "It was very refreshing," he said. "How much more strengthening is water than wine! Thank you for the trouble you took to fetch it. And you, you sang also in the chorus. It was beautifully done." "May I tell them so, sir?" I asked him, eagerly, without being able to help speaking in _some_ reply. "Yes, every one; but above all, the little ones;" and again he faintly smiled.