"Can you ask?"
"Yes.... Because of the years ahead of us. I think there are to be
many--for us both. The future is so bewildering--like a tangled and
endless forest, and very dim to see in.... But sometimes there comes a
rift in the foliage--and there is a glimpse of far skies shining. And
for a moment one--'sees clearly'--into the depths--a little way....
And surmises something of what remains unseen. And imagines more,
perhaps.... I wonder if you love me--enough."
"Dearest--dearest--"
"Let it remain unsaid, Clive. A girl must learn one day. But never
from the asking. And the same sun shall continue to rise and set,
whatever her answer is to be; and the moon, too; and the stars shall
remain unchanged--whatever changes us. How still the woods are--as
still as dreams."
[Illustration: "She suddenly sat upright, resting one slender hand on
his shoulder."] She lifted her head, looked at him, smiled, then, freeing herself,
sprang to her feet and stood a moment drawing her slim hand across her
eyes.
"I shall have a tennis court, Clive. And a canoe on Spring Pond....
What kind of puppy was that I said I wanted?"
"One which would grow up with proper fear and respect for Hafiz," he
said, smilingly, perplexed by the rapid sequence of her moods.
"A collie?"
"If you like."
"I wonder," she murmured, "whether they are safe for children--" She
looked up laughing: "Isn't it odd! I simply cannot seem to free my
mind of children whenever I think about that house."
As they moved along the path toward the new home he said: "What was it
you saw in the woods?"
"Children."
"Were they--real?"
"No."
"Had they died?"
"They have not yet been born," she said in a low voice.
"I did not know you could see such things."
"I am not sure that I can. It is very difficult for me, sometimes, to
distinguish between vividly imaginative visualisation and--other
things."
Walking back through the soft afternoon light the girl tried to tell
him all that she knew about herself and her clairvoyance--strove to
explain, to make him understand, and, perhaps, to understand herself.
But after a while silence intervened between them; and when they spoke
again they spoke of other things. For the isolation of souls is a
solitude inviolable; there can be no intimacy there, only the longing
for it--the craving, endless, unsatisfied.