It made their quality felt in the lines, and it spoke
with a personal joy.
"A new note!" Kendal thought aloud. "A voice crying in
the wilderness, by Jove! Wolff might have done it if it
had been in French, but Wolff would have been fairer and
more technical and less sympathetic."
A fine energy crept all through him and burned at his
finger-ends. The desire to work seized him deliciously
with the thrill of being understood, a longing to accomplish
to the utmost of his limitations--he must reasonably
suppose his limitations. Sometimes they were close and
real; at this moment they were far off and vague, and
almost dissolved by the force of his joyous intention.
He threw himself mentally upon half-finished canvas that
stood against the wall in Bryanston Street, and spent
ten exalted minutes in finishing it. When it was done he
found it ravishing, and raged because he could not decently
leave for town before four o'clock next day. He worked
off the time before dinner by putting his things together,
and the amiable people had never found him so delightful
as he was that evening. After amusing one of the robust
young ladies for half an hour at prodigious cost, he
found himself comparing their conversation with the talk
he might have had in the time with Elfrida Bell, and a
fresh sense of injury visited him at having been
high-handedly debarred from that pleasure for so many
weeks.
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