And yet it had been full of nothing but triumph, a sort of tender
triumph, almost childish delight. He was going to do wonders--
wonders!--open a new world to them! He was so dazzled by his
own work, dreams, by all he had in store for them, that he did not even
see them, themselves, worn with toil, realise the meaning of it, the
reason for it. In any case he would have laughed, because they had no
idea how near it was to an end.
That concert! It would be like nothing so much as opening a door into a
new world, where they need never so much as soil a finger: floating
around, dressed in silk, feeding from off the finest china, sleeping
upon down.
Man-like, his eyes were fixed upon the future. No two women had ever
been loved as they were loved. All this work, this washing and ironing,
it resembled nothing more than the opening scene in an opera: a sort of
prelude, for the sake of contrast. They would see--O-o-oh, yes, they
would see!
It was like that old childish "Shut your eyes and open your mouth."
But they--they were bound in the close-meshed strait-waistcoat of
endless toil, petty anxiety.
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