She was alone.
She wore a loose cream-coloured gown knotted about the waist; her arms were bare, and her hair unbound and flowing loose over her shoulders to her girdle.

She was to die in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for the famous quartet in the "great scene." But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair.

All music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted dream.

The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the pulse of a great ocean.

It seemed to him infinitely beautiful, infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of regret for the things that were never to be again.