Paul stared, understanding that the voice speaking through her was greater than she knew.
‘And some things are lost, we think,’ she added, ‘simply because they were wanted—wanted very much indeed, but never got.’
‘Yet these are certainly the words of a child,’ he reflected, wonder and delight equally mingled, ‘and of a child tumbling about among great spiritual things in a simple, intuitive fashion without knowing it.’
‘All the things that ought to happen, but never do happen,’ she went on, picking up the scattered daisies and making the pattern anew on a different part of his coat. ‘They all are found here.’
‘Wishes, dreams, ideals?’ he asked, more to see what answer she would make than because he didn’t understand.
‘I suppose that’s the same thing,’ she replied. ‘But, now please, Uncle Paul, keep still a minute or I can’t possibly finish this crown the daisies want me to make for them.’
Paul stared into her eyes and saw through them to the blue of the sky and the blue of the winding river beyond; through to the hills on the horizon, a deeper blue still; and thence into the softer blue shadows that lay over the timeless land buried in the distances of his own heart, where things might indeed come true beyond all reach of misadventure or decay. For this, of course, was the real land of wonder and imagination, where everything might happen and nothing need grow old. The vision of the poet saw ... far—far....
All this he realised through the blue eyes of the child at his side, who was playing with daisies and talking about the make-believe of children. His being swam out into the sunshine of great distances, of endless possibilities, all of which he might be able afterwards to interpret to others who did not see so far, or so clearly, as himself. He began to realise that his spirit, like the endless river at his feet, was without end or beginning. Thrills of new life poured into him from all sides.
‘And when we go back,’ he heard the musical little voice saying beside him, ‘that church will be striking exactly where we left it—the sixth stroke, I mean.’
‘Of course; I see!’ cried Paul, beginning to realise the full value of his discovery, ‘for there’s no time here, is there? Nothing grows old.’