Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/49

 disappeared. I lay on in a kind of waking-slumber till Mrs. Carroll came in, bringing me my tea. When I had finished I once more fell into a doze, but opened my eyes in the dusk, when I heard the notes of Jim's flute under my window, in a slow melancholy tune, with an occasional pause, as if the musician was not very certain of his music. I recognised the air—the Lorelei. It had a curious effect in the gathering twilight, as if the music and the fading light were in some subtle way mingled. I knew that the unseen musician was Jim, yet none the less the mournful notes, coming slowly in a minor key, seemed the very soul of the deepening darkness, and called up before me a world of imaginary sorrows, a passionate regret for I knew not what, a kind of homesickness for my dream-land. Tears gathered in my eyes and ran down my cheeks. Fortunately nobody could see them, but I was ashamed of them myself, though I knew they were partly the result of my physical weakness. Still, it was ridiculous that I should cry over Jim's playing. Jim really couldn't play at all. It was stupid, idiotic; and the other day I had cried just in this same senseless fashion over a book I had been reading; I had wept my soul out in an ecstasy of love and misery.

When Jim's serenade was ended I lay on in the darkness, my tears drying on my cheeks, and thought what a fool I was. Why should I have cried? What was the matter with me? It was not that I was unhappy; on the contrary, I was extremely happy. Yet somehow I felt dimly that there was a greater happiness than any I had ever experienced or probably ever should experience. The meaning of my emotions and desires never became quite clear, though I seemed on the verge of discovery. It was as if there were something stirring within me to which I could not give freedom, something which remained unsatisfied even in the midst of my keenest pleasures