e in this act; it promised to be harrowing; and
the first few notes she uttered recurred again later on as the motif for
the famous quartet in the "great scene."

But for all this, the music had little by little taken possession of
Vandover, and little by little he had forgotten his surroundings, the
stifling air of the house, the blinding glitter of the stage and the
discomfort of his limbs cramped into the narrow orchestra chair. All
music was music to him; he loved it with an unreasoned, uncritical
love, enjoying even the barrel organs and hand pianos of the streets.
For the present the slow beat and cadence of the melodies of the opera
had cradled all his senses, carrying him away into a kind of exalted
dream. The quartet began; for him it was wonderfully sweet, the
long-sustained chords breathing over the subdued orchestral
accompaniment, like some sweet south wind passing in long sighs over the
pulse of a great ocean. It seemed to him infinitely beautiful,
infinitely sad, subdued minor plaints recurring persistently again and
again like sighs of parting, but could not be restrained, like voices of
regret for the things that were never to be again. Or it was a pathos, a
joy in all things good, a vast tenderness, so sweet, so divinely pure
that it could not be framed in words, so great and so deep that it found
its only expression in tears. There came over him a vague sense of those
things which are too beautiful to be comprehended, of a nobility, a
self-oblivion, an immortal eternal love and kindness, all goodness, all
benignity, all pity for sin, all sorrow for grief, all joy for the true,
the right, and the pure.

To be better, to be true and right and pure, these were the only things
that were worth while, these were the things that he seemed to feel in
the music. It was as if for the moment he had become a little child
again, not ashamed to be innocent, ignorant of vice, still believing in
all his illusions, still near to the great white gates of life.

The appeal had been made directly to what was best and strongest in
Vandover, and the answer was quick and over-powering. All the good that
still survived in him leaped to life again in an instant, clamouring for
recognition, pleading for existence. The other Vandover, the better
Vandover, wrestled with the brute in him once more, never before so
strong, never so persistent. He had not yet destroyed all that was good
in him; now it had turned in one more revol