The battle was won without a blow.
Thereupon came glimpses of the gulfs of bondage, delicious, rose-enfolded, foreign; they were chapters of soft romance, appearing interminable, an endless mystery, an insatiable thirst for the mystery.
She heard crashes of the opera-melody, and despising it even more than the wretched engine of the harshness, she was led by it, tyrannically led a captive, like the organ-monkey, until perforce she usurped the note, sounded the cloying tune through her frame, passed into the vulgar sugariness, lost herself.
And saying to herself: This is what moves them! she was moved.

One thrill of appreciation drew her on the tide, and once drawn from shore she became submerged.

Why am I not beautiful, was her thought.

Those voluptuous modulations of melting airs are the natural clothing of beautiful women.

Beautiful women may believe themselves beloved.