Her reaction startled him. Her mien was knotted with something like revulsion as she mouthed the words, `Not know happiness . . .' He felt suddenly sick inside, or afraid, or both.
"What kind of world is this," she ached, "that could be so utterly devoid of such a simple thing as happiness?"
"It's not devoid, exactly," he replied, choosing his words carefully. "But it wasn't a consideration before. There was no . . . no time, no place for it. No need."
"No need?" She was badly shaken by this revelation. Moving away from him, she turned to watch the wind blowing in random waves through the grass in the meadow, wondering for the first time in her young life about coping in a world that seemed chaotic and uncaring, without a natural order directed by a benign, ever-present and watchful force that protected the little things, established and maintained a balance between right and wrong, good and evil, pain and redemption. Without looking at Anest, she said, "Until I came to be in Belloc's garden, I hadn't known life could be like that."
Anest hardly dared to breathe, fearing that what he had done to her had finally come back to damn him. He felt palpably that she had every reason to hate him. Every right. Yet, he had to give her some answer.