Now all the pent-up self-pity of the long, solitary years burst forth in a great torrent, breaking through the proud, passionate reserve that no living being had ever penetrated; his soul yielded up its secrets in a strange blend of pride, self-depreciation, and yearning for the woman’s sympathy.
“I have had to carry the hod, to climb the mast.”
“You climbed nearer heaven.”
“Ah, but I swabbed the deck.”
“You touched life at first hand. I have never envied you so much as now. We never get near its secret, we idle rich.”
“You glorify my past for me. I see it now as a divine education. I have been living for false ideals. Oh, if you could glorify my future!”
“I should be proud to inspire it!” The flash in her eyes passed to his.
“If I could see you every day, if I could tell you my hopes, my dreams. But what am I asking? It is impossible. You are the beautiful Mrs. Wyndwood, and I—”
“A genius, a Master! Towering over a humble slave!”
Her eyes, swimming in tears, but shining still, like stars through rain, sought his in humble adoration. Never had he pictured such a look from her. He shook, divining undreamed-of possibilities. For a moment he forgot everything. He caught her hot hand and held it to his lips. In that frenzy of divine fever, half fire, half tears, he felt again that love rationalized life. An infinity of thought and emotion was concentred in the instant; his long, sordid struggles, his craving for happiness, the infinite yearning with which as a boy in a lonely forest he had looked up at the stars. This was the secret of his yearning, this the flash that illumined life. And underlying and intertangled with everything, an astonishment at the vast sweep of life, the possibilities it held. Last night Rosina and Camden Town; to-night Eleanor and the sea and the stars.