“Will you say now there isn’t the personal note in it?” Edith asked.
Clayton glanced out the window, across the dark, surging street, at the picture.
“Oh, it’s not me they’re cheering for,” he said; “it’s for Kit, here.”
“Well, perhaps some of it’s for him,” Edith admitted loyally.
They were silent, seized irresistibly by the emotion that mastered the mighty crowd in the dark streets below. Edith was strangely moved. Presently she could speak:
“Is there anything sweeter in life than to know that you have done a good thing—and done it well?”
“Yes,” said Clayton, “just one: to have a few friends who understand.”
“You are right,” said Edith. “It is so with art, and it must be so with life; it makes an art of life.”
It was dark enough there by the window for her to slip her hand into that of Neil, who had been musing silently on the crowd.
“I can never say again,” she said softly, “that those people are not worth sacrifice. They are worth all; they are everything; they are the hope of the world; and their longings and their needs, and the possibility of bringing them to pass, are all that give significance to life.”