And Myra herself, that charming presence to infold his life—He would go walking through the golden October park, by little leaf-strewn paths under the wild and sun-soaked foliage, with many vistas every way of luring mystery, and over all the earth the rich opulent mother-bliss of harvest, and his heart would ache, ache within him, ache for his own harvests, ache like the sun for the earth, the man for the woman.
A mad frenzy would seize him and he would plunge into his books and read and think and lash himself to a fury of speculation till the early hours of the morning. Exhaustion alone brought him peace.
But something had to be done. He sat down and wrote to her with a trembling hand:
DEAR MYRA,—Though I am impatient to see you, I must yet wait a little while. Bear with me. You will understand later.
Yours,
JOE.
And then she replied:
DEAR JOE,—Can't I help you?
MYRA.
He had to fight a whole afternoon before he replied:
Not yet—later.
JOE.
And back he went into the whirlwind of the world-vision, a stupendous force upsetting, up-rooting, overturning, demolishing, almost erasing and contradicting everything that Joe had taken for granted, and in the wake of the destruction, rising and ever rising, a new creation, the vision of a new world.