“It was good of you to come and explain,” she said. “The rest is naturally no concern of ours.”
“Yes, but I want—I wanted—have you ever read The Ordeal of Richard Feverel?”
Margaret nodded.
“It’s a beautiful book. I wanted to get back to the Earth, don’t you see, like Richard does in the end. Or have you ever read Stevenson’s Prince Otto?”
Helen and Tibby groaned gently.
“That’s another beautiful book. You get back to the Earth in that. I wanted—” He mouthed affectedly. Then through the mists of his culture came a hard fact, hard as a pebble. “I walked all the Saturday night,” said Leonard. “I walked.” A thrill of approval ran through the sisters. But culture closed in again. He asked whether they had ever read E. V. Lucas’s Open Road.
Said Helen, “No doubt it’s another beautiful book, but I’d rather hear about your road.”
“Oh, I walked.”
“How far?”
“I don’t know, nor for how long. It got too dark to see my watch.”