"There's nothing for dinner," said Fanny.
"The fish-boat may come in, in time."
"Will three o'clock do for you? If so, I'll stay with Hepsey till then."
"Four will answer?"
She cleared away my breakfast things and left me. I sat by the window an hour, looking over the water, my thoughts drifting through a golden haze, and then went up to my room and looked out again. If I turned my eyes inside the walls, I was aware of the yearning, yawning empty void within me, which I did not like. I sauntered into Verry's room, to see if any clouds were coming up from the north. There were none. The sun had transfixed the sky, and walked through its serene blue, "burning without beams." Neither bird nor insect chirped; they were hid from the radiant heat in tree and sod. I went back again to my own window. The subtle beauty of these inorganic powers stirred me to mad regret and frantic longing. I stretched out my arms to embrace the presence which my senses evoked.
It would be better to get a book, I concluded, and hunted up Barry
Cornwall's songs. With it I would go to the parlor, which was shaded.
I turned the leaves going down, and went in humming:
"Mount on the dolphin Pleasure," and threw myself on the sofa beside—Desmond!
I dropped Barry Cornwall.
"I have come," he said, in a voice deathly faint.
"How old you have grown, Desmond!"