Mary herself found so much in common with the Sailor that she began to
show him the sights of the town. She was quite a modern girl in her
breadth and independence, happily inoculated against every sort of ism,
but at the same time capable of following any line she marked out for
herself. The Sailor had soon begun to interest her very much, and
instinctively divining something of his handicap, she wished to help
him all she could.
About a week after the first visit to Queen Street, she led the young
man to the National Gallery to see the Turners. They spent a very
profitable morning holding high communion before them. His unstudied
comments seemed to give her a juster view not of art merely, but of
life as well. The depth of his intoxication as he stood before these
seascapes, sensing them, drinking them in, filled her with wonder.
"God!" he muttered once. She saw his eyes were full of tears, and she
felt a stab of pity.
Life had not been kind to this man. A thousand subtle, half
apprehended things had already told her that. He had said in his odd
way, which was yet so poignant, that he "had started a long way behind
scratch." Indeed, it was the sight of these very Turners which had
wrung the admission from him.
After this, they went one day to Manchester Square to see the Wallace
collection, and to concerts on several Sunday afternoons, but the
climax of esthetic delight was reached for Henry Harper when one
evening he was taken to the Opera to hear "Tristan." Edward Ambrose,
who it seemed numbered the super-rich among his friends, had been lent
a box on the grand tier. And nothing would content him save that
others should share the blessings which attend acquaintance with
plutocracy.
The box was able to accommodate six persons, and those whom Edward
Ambrose lured into honoring it and being honored by it were the three
ladies, the Prince, Henry Harper, and himself. Lady Pridmore and the
Prince were a little bored undoubtedly. She had the lowest opinion of
Wagner and thought the Germans overrated generally. The Prince was
more discreet in his condemnation, but he certainly thought the Prelude
was too long. Edward Ambrose, Mary, and Silvia had heard it so often
that it was almost ceasing to be an excitement for them: a frame of
mind, it is said, which connotes the amateur. As for Mr. Harper, that
was an ever-memorable night.
From this time on he was in a state of growing ecstasy which threatened
to become perilous. Existence was now an enchanted thing. A veritable
Fairy Princess had come into his life. In speech, in manner, in look,
in deed, she was of royal kin. In all the Sailor's wanderings, in all
his imaginings, no mortal woman had assumed the significance of this
sister of the immortal Klondyke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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