At any rate, Philip could see that she was rapt away into that other
world of the past, to a practical unconsciousness of her immediate
surroundings. Was it the music or the poetic idea that held her?
Perhaps only the latter, for it is Wagner's gift to reach by his
creations those who have little technical knowledge of music. At any
rate, she was absorbed, and so perfectly was the progress of the drama
repeated in her face that Philip, always with the help of the orchestra,
could trace it there.
But presently something more was evident to this sympathetic student of
her face. She was not merely discovering the poet's world, she was
finding out herself. As the drama unfolded, Philip was more interested
in this phase than in the observation of her enjoyment and appreciation.
To see her eyes sparkle and her cheeks glow with enthusiasm during the
sword-song was one thing, but it was quite another when Siegfried began
his idyl, that nature and bird song of the awakening of the whole being
to the passion of love. Then it was that Evelyn's face had a look of
surprise, of pain, of profound disturbance; it was suffused with blushes,
coming and going in passionate emotion; the eyes no longer blazed, but
were softened in a melting tenderness of sympathy, and her whole person
seemed to be carried into the stream of the great life passion.
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