But it was cut; the door had closed on her.

The moment it had closed she passed into his imagination.

By what charm had she allayed the fever of his anxiety?
Her naturalness had perforce given him assurance that peace must surround one in whom it shone so steadily, and smiling at the thought of Zotti's repast and her twinkle of subdued humour, he walked away comforted; which, for a lover in the season of peril means exalted, as in a sudden conflagration of the dry stock of his intelligence.

'She must have some great faith in her heart,' he thought, no longer attributing his exclusion from it to a lover's rivalry, which will show that more than imagination was on fire within him.

For when the soul of a youth can be heated above common heat, the vices of passion shrivel up and aid the purer flame.