Then might one who watched have seen a singular transfiguration come over the poet’s face. The heavy sensuality of its lines seemed to melt away, and leave in its place a sort of splendid, weighty thoughtfulness. Leaning his elbow on his knee, his chin upon his clenched hand, the whole soul of the man seemed once more concentrated in his eyes, but they were no longer the eyes of the satyr, but of the poet; and they were looking at Alison, not as at the woman, but as at the singer, whose sweet singing roused inspiration at its source. Even now his lips moved, for the lyrical impulse stirred within him, and the thronging words and the tingling lines leapt into unison in his throbbing brain. You could see the massive features quiver, the passionate veins upon the temples swell, the eye blaze beneath the furrowed brow. Nancy watched and worshipped him as a fanatic before a shrine, and even literal Alison, as she felt herself wrapt in that consuming presence, knew herself, with a singular uplifting of the spirit, to be, for the moment, the privileged hand-maid of genius. When the last sounds died away, the man would move, would slap his giant thigh, with something like a shout of pure delight, and call for more, broad as the peasant that he was, and with the passion and insistence of a boy. In these fine, natural moments, Alison liked him well, and when he fell to discussing the ballad or the air—thoughtful, intelligent, shrewd—she would like him even better, and feel that even Herries might approve her liking. Ah! had this been all, and these little _symposia_ that were to take place so often in the cosy little room, been all as innocent as they seemed, what a fitting, what a grand impression of Scotland’s poet would Alison have carried away with her! But, alas! ’Sylvander’ all too soon would don the cap and bells, and then Alison would wonder, with a shudder, how Nancy could bear to have him sit so close, and bend so near to hers that changed face, with the bold eyes and sensual lips. Intellectual attraction—fascination even—the man had for the girl, must have had, indeed, for all who came under the sway of his tremendous personality and his genius, but it warred in her, sometimes, with a physical repulsion, so strong that she could scarcely conceal it. This first evening, Willy called to her from his bed, for the story she was in the habit of telling him before he went to sleep. So ’Sylvander’ and ’Clarinda’ snatched a few precious moments of communion alone. ’Well,’ Nancy said, ’was not that a fit song for a poet’s ear? Has not the child the sweetest voice?’ ’Ay,’ said the poet, stretching great arms above his head, his dark eyes glowing, and his bronzed cheek flushed. ’Ay, a sweet voice! My heart leaps, and my blood sallies at its sweetness. I am a slave to such sounds. But miss will not sing often for the poor bard. I can see,’ he added in a different tone, ’’tis a fine lady—not a congenial, not a sympathetic soul....’