He described to her the efforts of a London society, of which he was a subscribing member, to popularize the best music among the lowest class; he dwelt almost with passion on the difference between the joy to be got out of such things and the common brutalizing joys of the workman.

And you could not have art without artists.

In this again he was only talking the commonplaces of his day.

But to her they were not commonplaces at all.

She looked at him from time to time, her great eyes lightening and deepening as it seemed with every fresh thrust of his.
'I am grateful to you,' she said at last, with an involuntary outburst, 'I am _very_ grateful to you!' And she gave a long sigh, as if some burden she had long borne in patient silence had been loosened a little, if only by the fact of speech about it.