"It's like a garden, in that still space before the dawn."
"Sometimes it's almost terrible up here, then. As if the night were some indescribable vengeance that had blotted all life from the world, and as if everything were being created anew without any memory of death or pain. I have never seen anything, except the sea, wake like the city does to a new life. A new life, every twenty-four hours. And no matter how many you spoil, there's another waiting, and you can drop the spoiled one into the night."
The gold and scarlet were fading to saffron and silver. A star peeped from the edge of a pale green pool.
"It would do that—or else make you feel there was no use in anything."
"I don't think it would ever make you feel like that really, not for long anyhow. The rhythm in it is so evidently a law—you've got to be a part. There's nothing else for you to be."
"An absolutely materialistic logic doesn't seem to fit, exactly, does it?"
"No, it doesn't. A few dawns and sunsets shake it terribly. They make you feel like a child, listening to a fairy story, that you know is true, no matter how much the grown-ups scoff."
"May I come sometimes and listen to the fairy story, too?" Jerome asked so simply, so like a child, that Jean felt her threat tighten.
"Whenever you want to. Don't bother to let me know. Just come—whenever you're blue or lonely—or just logical and materialistic."
Jerome laughed and, on the lighter note, they began to get supper. When it was ready, Jean spread the small table outside, where space opened most widely to the Jersey shore. As they ate, and Jean told of the "kind ladies" to whom a Consumers' League was still a form of charity to the workers, the last shreds of color faded from the sky. Shy stars ventured boldly out and the gray deepened to night-blue.