The incident was trivial, but Olivia had never seemed so near.
Sometimes in the world of commonplace there comes an extreme hour which one afterward remembers with "Could that have been I?
But could it have been I who did that ?" And one finds it in one's heart to be certain that it was not one's self, but some one else--some one very near, some one who is always sharing one's own consciousness and inexplicably mixing with one's moments.

"Perhaps," St.George would have said, "there is some such person who is nearly, but not quite, I myself.

And if there is, it was he and not I who was at that banquet!" It was one of the hours which seem to have been made with no echo.

It was; and then passed into other ways, and one remembered only a brightness.

For example, St.George listened to what Balator said, and he heard with utmost understanding, and with the frequent pleasure of wonder, and was now and then exquisitely amused as one is amused in dreams.