"
"And I," she murmured, "will dream. Isn't it lovely?"
He smiled.
"I wonder how it really seems to you," he remarked. "We are breathing
an atmosphere hot with gas, and fragrant with orange peel. We are
squashed in amongst a crowd of people of a class whom I fancy that
neither you nor I know much about. And I saw you last in a wilderness!
We saw only the yellow sands, and the rocks, and the Atlantic. We
heard only the thunder of the sea and the screaming of seagulls. This
is very different."
"Wonderfully, wonderfully different," she answered. "I miss it all! Of
course I do, and yet one is so much nearer to life here, the real life
of men and women. Oh, one cannot compare it. Why should one try? Ah,
listen!"
The curtain went up. The music of the orchestra subsided, and the
music of the human voice floated through the Opera House--the human
voice, vibrant with joy and passion and the knowledge which lies
behind the veil. Juliet found no time to talk then, no time to think
even of her companion. Her young cheeks were flushed, her eyes were
bright with excitement. She leaned a little forward in her place, she
passed with all the effortless facility of her ingenuous youth, into
the dim world of golden fancies which the story of the opera was
slowly unfolding. Beside her, Mrs. Tresfarwin dozed and blinked and
dozed again--and on her left Aynesworth himself, a little affected by
the music, still found time to glance continually at his companion, so
radiant with life and so fervently intent upon realizing to the full
this, the first of its unknown joys.
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