“I suppose some do.”
“Well, it doesn’t—like gold hunting. It doesn’t make you muscular. But for two years now I’ve stood in front of a mirror and drawn a bow across a fiddle for eight hours, then stopped an hour, and done it again. It isn’t easy to do that—all alone. It takes a sort of brawn, doesn’t it?”
“I should think it might,” agreed Barnes.
“It’s been nothing but work up to now,” Langdon ran on. “I’ve just been learning to play. I couldn’t see what it was leading to—until this summer.”
“And now?” inquired Barnes.
“Now I’ve found out. Eleanor has made me see.”
Barnes ran his hand over his brow.
“Joe, she’s made me hope for big things; she’s filled my soul full of big songs. Don’t you understand now?”
“You mean—you love her?”
Langdon came nearer and held out his hand.