Something
lately seemed lost to them of that kind of. glad activity;
he was more aware of it than she, since he was less
occupied in the aesthetic ecstasy of self-torture. In
the old time before the sun rose they had been so conscious
of realms of idea lying just beyond the achievement of
thought, approachable, visible by phrases, brokenly,
realms which they could see closer when they essayed
together. He constantly struggled to reach those enchanted
areas again, but they seemed to have gone down behind
the horizon; and the only inspiration that carried them
far drew its impetus from the poetry of their plight.
They looked for verses to prove that Browning's imagination
carried him bravely through lives and lives to come, and
found them to speculate whether in such chances they
might hope to meet again.
And the talk came back to his difficulties with his Board
of Management, and to her choice of a frame for the
etching he had given her, by his friend the Glasgow
impressionist, and to their opinion of a common
acquaintance, and to Lorne and his prospects. He told
her how little she resembled her brother, and where they
diverged, and how; and she listened with submission and
delight, enchanted to feel his hand upon her intimate
nature. She lingered in the hall while he got into his
overcoat, and saw that a glove was the worse for wear.
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