A hundred new conceptions came into his besieged brain--engaging but by no means confusing him.

He perceived that Mary was already as much a part of this high-colored life as she had been of the life of Marmion, quite at ease, certain of herself, and the canon between them widened swiftly.

She was infinitely further away from him than before.

His cause now entirely hopeless, he had no right to ask any such sacrifice of her--even if she were ready to make it.
As she stepped out upon the stage in the glare of the light, she seemed as far from him as the roseate crown of snow on Sierra Blanca, and he shivered with a sort of awe.

Her singing moved him less than her delicate beauty--but her voice and the pretty way she had of lifting her chin thrilled him just as when he sat in the little church at Marmion.
The flowerlike texture of her skin and the exquisite grace of her hands plunged him into gloom.
He did not join in the generous applause which followed--he wondered if she would sing If I Were a Voice for him.