“I promised.” It seemed incredible to me that I had ever hesitated.
“Ages ago,” I heard his answer. It was like the singing of the stream that murmured past our feet. “Ages ago.”
I was aware that he let go my hand. We were moving through the dripping grass, crossing and recrossing the little stream. The mountains rose dark and strong about us. I heard the cart lumbering away with creaking wheels towards the barn. Across the heavens the stars trailed their golden pattern more and more thickly. I saw them gleaming in the unruffled lake. I smelt the odour of wood-smoke that came from the châlet chimney.
We walked in silence. Those stars, those changeless hills, deep woods and singing rivulet—primitive and eternal things—accompanied us. They were the right witnesses of our meeting. And a night-wind, driving the dusk towards the west, woke in the forest and came out to touch our faces. Splendour and loneliness closed about us, heralding Powers of Nature that were here not yet explained away.
CHAPTER XVI
“We cannot limit the types, superhuman or subhuman, that may obtain. We can ‘set no bounds to the existence or powers of sentient beings’—a consideration of the highest importance, as well, perhaps, practical as theoretical.... The discovery of Superhumans of an exalted kind may be only a question of time, and the attainment of knowledge on this head one of the most important achievements in the history of races that are to come.”—“The Individual and Reality” (Fawcett).
Something certainly tightened in my throat as we went across that soaking grass towards the building that was half châlet, half farm-house, with steep, heavy roof and wide veranda. The lights beckoned to us through the little windows. I saw a shadow slip across the casement window on the upper floor. And my question was out of its own accord before I could prevent it. My mind held in that moment no other thought at all; my pulses quickened.
“So, Julius, you have—found her?”