The
little barrier of age, for one thing, which he had sometimes felt,
seemed obliterated. There had been in Howard's mind a sense that he
had known a number of hard facts and ugly features about life, had
been aware of mean, combative, fierce, cruel elements which were
hidden from Maud. Now this all seemed to be purged away; if these
things were there, they were not worth knowing, except to be
disregarded. They were base material knowledge which one must not
even recognise; they were not real forces at all, only ugly,
stubborn obstacles, through which life must pass, like water
flowing among rocks; they were not life, only the channel of life,
through which one passed to something more free and generous. He
began to perceive that such things mattered nothing at all to Maud;
that her life would have been just as fine in quality if she had
lived in the smallest cottage among the most sordid cares. He saw
that she possessed the wisdom which he had missed, because she
lived in and for emotion and affection, and that all material
things existed only to enshrine and subserve emotion.
Their life seemed to take on a new colour and intensity. They
talked less; up till now it had been a perpetual delight to Howard
to elicit Maud's thoughts and fancies about a thousand things,
about books, people, ideas. Her prejudices, ignorances, enthusiasms
half charmed, half amused him. But now they could sit or walk
silent together in an even more tranquil happiness; nearness was
enough, and thought seemed to pass between them without need of
speech.
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