He said no more for a time. There were schemes in his head, so immature as yet that he could not even sketch them out to her.
He sat with his eyes dreaming, and Joan watched him. There was much of the noble beast in this Peter of hers. In the end now, she was convinced, he was going to be an altogether noble beast. Through her. He was hers to cherish, to help, to see grow.... He was her chosen man.... Depths that were only beginning to awaken in Joan were stirred. She would sustain Peter, and also presently she would renew Peter. A time would come when this dear spirit would be born again within her being, when the blood in her arteries and all the grace of her body would be given to a new life—to new lives, that would be beautiful variations of this dearest tune in the music of the world.... They would have courage; they would have minds like bright, sharp swords. They would lift their chins as Peter did.... It became inconceivable to Joan that women could give their bodies to bear the children of unloved men. “Dear Petah,” her lips said silently. Her heart swelled; her hands tightened. She wanted to kiss him....
Then in a whim of reaction she was moved to mockery.
“Do you feel so very stern and strong, dear Petah?” she whispered close to his shoulder.
He started, surprised, stared at her for a moment, and smiled into her eyes.
“Old Joan,” he said and kissed her....
§ 10
When he returned to the house on Monday morning after he had seen the two young people off, a burthen of desolation came upon Oswald.
It was a loneliness as acute as a physical pain. It was misery. If they had been dead, he could not have been more unhappy. The work that had been the warm and living substance of fifteen years was now finished and done. The nest was empty. The road and the stream, the gates and the garden, the house and the hall, seemed to ache with emptiness and desertion. He went into their old study, from which they had already taken a number of their most intimate treasures, and which was now as disordered as a room after a sale. Most of their remaining personal possessions were stacked ready for removal; discarded magazines and books and torn paper made an untidy heap beside the fireplace. “I could not feel a greater pain if I had lost a son,” he thought, staring at these untidy vestiges.
He went to his own study and sat down at his desk, though he knew there was no power of attention in him sufficient to begin work.