He leaped up at once and began to serve her from the sideboard, while the joyous tumult from below and along the corridor became louder, and someone in the next box was making high festival, with squeals of women laughing and the rumble of men. They ate, talking a little more of the nature of love and whether it lives by satisfaction or by the lack of it. She drank more than he. There were springcakes; he set one before her, but she only tasted it and pushed it away, whereupon he left his own untouched and ran around the table to gather her in his arms. “You are the only sweet I need,” he whispered, feeling at once strong and weak, but she avoided her head from his kiss, and when he essayed to hold her, shook herself free, with: “No. Ah, let us not spoil it.” “Lovely Aiella, do not say that, I implore,” he cried, slipping down with one arm around her waist, his face close to the sweet hair of her turned head (and now with the fired-wine and nearness it was not of Maritzl of Stojenrosek he thought of, Maritzl lost, or of Lalette, or of the interruption that would come, but only of desire), and he slipped farther to one knee, not saying anything any more, only drawing her hands to him and kissing them again and again. She took them from him and lifted his face gently to look him straight in the eyes, for one long breath in which the sound of the twittering recorders came from the floor beneath; then the Countess Aiella rose a trifle unsteadily to her feet, and as Rodvard rose also, holding her in the circle of his arms, said; “Shall we kiss?” Her face was in shadow as the full lips met his, but as he swung her from her feet toward the divan, her eyes came open (and he saw in those deep pools that she would resist no longer, only hope that it would be better than the others). He half fell across her, with fingers and lips they devoured each other— The creak of the opening door shivered through every muscle. “Be careful, my lord,” said Cleudi’s voice, strongly. “By the Service! What’s here?” Rodvard rolled himself afoot (the thought of that other union unconsummated in Mme. Kaja’s garret shouting a trumpet through his mind and making him now glad, glad of this failure) and around to see Cleudi, all in his purple costume, with the pudgy Duke of Aggermans, and between the two a masque dressed as a bear. The man was very drunk; as the lolling white head came upright in its swing, Rodvard found himself looking into the eyes of the people’s friend, Baron Brunivar, and even in the dim light, was appalled by what he saw there, for the man was not only drunk, he had a witchery upon him.