Four years. And then—as had been the case with Gareth—Kay's adolescence was kindled by encounter with a girl flushed and vital and eager ... not the girl of the February wood. They swept each other on to experiment ... a wild forbidden journey together in a tramp-steamer that had called at the harbour to take in coal ... a week, stealthy and rapturous, spent on an island off the coast of Ireland....
Then, at the height of rapture, inexplicable flight of the girl.
At first Kay was possessed by the one idea of seeking her out again, to renew the glory of which he had so staggeringly been deprived. But at the moment when his quest was successful, when, unseen himself, he saw her again, came realization that she was not the love he had waited for; and that the quest itself—ceaseless grapple with the void and desolate hours lacking her; memories that were as wounds that could not bear the lightest touch—all this tumult and turmoil of pain hitherto unknown—all was but that other curve of adventure which he must perforce accept without shirking, as he had accepted the wonder of her red hair, and her black eyes, and her passionate imperious ways.
Perhaps she never knew that he had seen her. He turned his back on the possibility of romance prolonged ... in silence returned to the harbour; to the workshop where he had been learning the business of ship-building, before sex had called him out and away.... And now, when time had out-worn the pain and the unsatisfied craving, the path was clear for that other girl—his girl—predestined his, now he had beaten down the temptation to forsake a mere promise ... a dream....
"Grant the path be clear before you——"
... And suddenly Gareth broke down; sat with face buried in his arms, shaking in every limb; the blood sweeping to his head and as quickly ebbing again ... strange clanging discords in his soul.... He hated Kay Rollinson for being able to do this, this which he had failed to do ... years ago, at Alpenruh. Was sick with momentary envy of the man he had summoned into being—his brain-creature—his slave.
There had been subtle fascination in thus deliberately setting him in the same circumstances as his own; in forcing him to the same crisis ... and wrenching him out triumphant.
But it wasn't fair—not fair—God had made Gareth Temple futile and rotten of will. Kay Rollinson's god had been kinder.
Well ... he had started to write; had pledged his self-respect to this one achievement at least. So he would have to go on mocking the man he was, with a splendid paper-and-ink conception of the man he thought himself. No ... he was not ungrateful; he loved his book, and the hero of it.... It was only just for a little while he hated him for not having blundered as he himself had blundered.... For Gareth the path was blocked now, if she should come ... if she should still come....