“It’s all right, dear; I do understand.”
“Really?” he was surprised at her emphasis.
“Really and truly. Good night ... darling,” scarcely breathing the last word, she slipped out of his arms and vanished. Left him, marvelling....
The car and the road again, and the buffeting masses of wind. Sebastian’s exhilaration, dashed somewhat by his two recent interviews with unresponsive middle-age, whipped itself anew to a tremendous height. For now he was clear of worldly burdens; stripped like a runner for the great race; and with the discovery new upon him of just how easy of accomplishment were the things that had never before entered into the range of normal possibility. The quest of spiritual adventure.... And the Haven rushing nearer and nearer, as sombre patches of pine-gloom, spectral open spaces, tore helter-skelter in the opposite direction. Soon he would be telling Heron—and the older man would flash him that quick curly grin of approval.... Now the flat oozing stretches of mud, and the glimmer of a sluggish tide, far out towards the horizon.—And now all brakes jammed on—the car ceased to hum, and stood immovable, but still vibrating from the reckless pace at which it had been driven.
Sebastian leapt down the sand-banks, on to the beach; found Stuart musing, bare-headed, at the door of the bungalow; evidently quite oblivious of wind and tempest. And now, in actual presence of his idol, a sudden diffidence swept over the boy. This Stuart Heron, while stimulating the most fanatical exploits in others, yet contrived himself to retain an atmosphere entirely ordinary. Flushing scarlet, and rather breathless, Sebastian dashed into his recital:
“I’ve been wanting to tell you, Heron, how immensely I admired your ideas—about renunciation—and all that; how they struck me as fine—and clean ... like star-spaces ... when everybody else is so beastly, and grabs at things, money and—and furniture, the heavy tangible articles that block out the view and the air.... I’m expressing myself horribly badly, I know, but you’ve rather knocked the stuffing out of me lately; just lately, when I was smuggest. And anyway, I don’t want only to jaw; anybody can do that. So I turned it about—your philosophy, creed, religion, whatever you like to call it,—chewed it, and worried over it, and cursed you up and down.... And to-night I chucked up my whole future as it was mapped out for me; told the Guv’nor that I wouldn’t take his fifteen hundred a year; take it, and loll on it as if it were a sofa of cushions. Chucked up my partnership in the business; and, I suppose, all chances of a comfortable marriage just yet. Chucked it all up....”
He stopped. The impetus which had carried him so far, gave out suddenly. He was still a bit dazed as to the actual reasons which had inspired his recent startling performances; was just conscious of a mighty upheaval in his affairs, overwhelming changes starting on the morrow. For the present, tired out, he craved only to hear the surge of praise due to him—
“Chucked it all up,” he pleaded....
Stuart shifted his pipe into the corner of his mouth. His gaze was still bent outwards to the sluggish line of tide on the horizon.
“Rather a theatrical proceeding, surely?”