Among all the men whom she knew, Claude Heath was the only one who was alone with his art, and who wished to remain alone with the thing he loved. There was a purity in the situation which delighted Mrs. Mansfield. Yet she realized that Heath was a man who might be won away from that which was best in him, from that which he almost sternly clung to and cherished. And one day he made her aware that he knew this.
They went to a concert together at Queen's Hall, and sat in the gallery, in seats which Heath habitually frequented when the music given was orchestral, when he wished to see as little as possible and to hear perfectly. He enjoyed hearing a fine orchestra without watching the conductor, whose necessary gestures, sometimes not free from an element of the grotesque, hindered the sweet toil of his imagination, held him back from worlds he desired to enter.
Between the two parts of the not long concert there was a pause. During it Mrs. Mansfield and Claude left their seats and strolled about in the corridor, talking. They were both of them heated by music and ready for mental intimacy. But they did not discuss the works they had just heard. Combinations of melody and harmony turned them toward life and humanity. The voices of the great orchestral family called them toward the dim avenues where in the shadows destiny wanders. Some music enlarges the borders, sets us free in regions whose confines we cannot perceive. They spoke of aims, of ideals, of goals which are very far off.
"Fine music gives me the conception of great distances," Mrs. Mansfield said presently. "It makes me feel that the soul is born for travel."
Heath stood still.
"The winding white road over the hills that loses itself in the vagueness which, in a picture, only some shade of blue can suggest. The road! The road!"
He stood leaning against the wall. As she stood by him Mrs. Mansfield felt strangely, almost cruelly, young. It was as if student days had come for them both. She could hardly believe that her hair was snow-white, and that Charmian had been going to parties for nearly four years.
"The worst of it is," Claude continued, "that it is so hard sometimes not to wander from it."
"It seems to me you never wander."
"Because I know that, if I did, I should probably never come back to the road. What you perhaps consider my strength takes its rise, I believe, in my knowledge of my weakness. Things that are right for others aren't right for me."