Not till then did he understand the change that had come over her in this last fortnight—the change that concerned him alone. It was clear that the music which her soul made was no cheerful little chant. Inarticulate, it sang and soared. A little of that fire leaped across to him, kindling him.
"That was sweet of you!" he said. "But it makes me feel rather nervous. What if you are disappointed?"
She came a little closer to him.
"I've got an awful confession to make!" she said. "When—when you asked me first, I was so pleased and glad, but I didn't care. Not care. But since then——" She looked up at him.
"I care so much," she said. "And I want to be worthy. You have such fine thoughts, Edward, thoughts so much above me. I've always known that, but now that I care for you I realize it. When you play, for instance, you are hearing things I am deaf to, seeing visions, perhaps, that I am blind to. But I do want to learn. Will you teach me? Nobody but you can teach me."
Her confession ennobled her; he saw a glimpse of her far above him. All the years that he had known her he had thought that there was nothing up high like that. But it had always been there; it wanted but the sun and wind of love to part the cloud and show the shining peaks. Human peaks, divine peaks, the highlands of dawning love. She was beginning to realize for herself, quite easily, quite without effort all that he lacked, all that in the vague dream of his youth he believed to lie outside of him. Already she was there, her foot on the eternal snows, bathed in the eternal sunshine. The commonest and greatest miracle of all was in process within; the waterpots were already reddening with the true grape.
"I never guessed," she said. "And, oh, Edward, if only caring made me less stupid! But be patient with me and wait for me to learn. I shall be able to learn if you will teach me. There is a whole great world round me, full of splendour and beauty, which somehow doesn't come in one's way at Heathmoor. I think"—and she laughed—"I think the asparagus, so to speak, shuts it out. But it is there; it's everywhere. You took me right up to it, and even then I didn't recognize it at once. Now I am beginning to recognize it. I get glimpses of it, anyhow."
This was near enough to the dream-thoughts that had come to him last night as he looked at the square house next door to enable him to join her. But she, who besought him to teach her, spoke authentically of what she had seen; he, the teacher, but babbled and halted over things imagined and not realized.
"Ah, that is so much what I felt last night," he said. "I went to the 'Gotterdämmerung' in town, and when I came back I stood in the garden, and all that you say was in my mind. There is a splendid world round us, and too much asparagus. I don't mean——"
She guessed just what he stopped himself from saying.