Jerome did not answer instantly and when he did, said, with no perceptible change of tone:
"Thank you. I should like to very much."
"We'll quit punctually and gather up the food as we go. Till six, then."
Jerome continued to look at the closed door several moments after he heard Jean's shut. Then he crossed to the filing cabinet, realized after he had searched through three drawers, that what he wanted was at home, came back to the desk and sat down.
Suddenly he laughed out loud and began to work.
At six he locked the desk, thoroughly satisfied with the day's accomplishment. He found Jean just closing hers, and a few moments later they were going from shop to shop, collecting supper, with much happy, foolish comment on each other's preferences in cold meats and pickles.
Jean remembered the many times she had done this with Gregory, and now, that memory no longer stung, it brought Jerome near, extended their friendship far beyond the year she had known him, linked him closely with the past. So that it seemed to Jean that each little separate interlude of happiness in life was not really separate, but, by some hidden spiritual chemistry, was only an element in the larger, complex solution of all possible happiness.
And when, half an hour later, they stood together silent on the farthest edge of the roof, and watched the sun slipping over the rim of the West, Jean felt nearer to the man beside her than she had ever thought to feel to any one again. Nearer, in some ways, than she had felt to Gregory, for never, with him, had she for a moment been unconscious of her love. She had never for an instant been unaware of Gregory as the man she loved. He had always been stronger than any moment or any place. The deepest peace had held always, within itself, the power of its own destruction. But there was no personal claim in this silence with Jerome. In their mutual understanding of life's lonely hours, they shared the peace of the roof.
"It's another world—absolutely another world," Jerome said quietly.
Jean nodded. "Nothing's the same up here. Stillness is not empty and color's really sound. Sunrise and sunset are like tremendous chords on a great organ. Sometimes I feel that some day I am going to hear it, actually hear the old music of the spheres."