It was a solace to Owen's burdened heart to find somebody who would
listen to him, and he talked on and on, telling of the day he and
Evelyn had gone to Madame Savelli, and how he had had to leave Paris
soon after, for his presence distracted Evelyn's attention from her
singing-lessons. "In a year," Madame Savelli had said, "I will make
something wonderful of her, Sir Owen, if you will only go away, and
not come back for six months."
"He lives in recollection of that time," Ulick said to himself, "that
is his life; the ten years he spent with her are his life, the rest
counts for nothing." A moment after Owen was comparing himself to a
man wandering in the twilight who suddenly finds a lamp: "A lamp
that will never burn out," Ulick said to himself. "He will take that
lamp into the tomb with him."
"But I must read you the notices." And going to an escritoire covered
with ormolu--one of those pieces of French furniture which cost
hundreds of pounds--he took out a bundle of Evelyn's notices. "The
most interesting," he said, "were the first notices--before the
critics had made up their mind about her."
He stopped in his untying of the parcel to tell Ulick about his
journey to Brussels to hear her sing.
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