"Not too young for marriage," grossly chuckled the old man. "There's many uneasy lads of your age and less would do well to be married. The devil tickles finely the members of a young lad."
Peter had heard these things discussed in a public hall, but the language had been decently scientific or medical. How vulgar and timid seemed these late evasions under the burning sun! Peter was ashamed not to be able frankly to meet an old man who talked clearly of nature without picking his words.
Peter sweated through the day, and in the evening sat happily tired at the window. His day's work had brought him nearer yet to the earth. The faint smell of the drying grass, and a dim line of the field where the green blade met the grey, was witness of a day well spent. Manual labour was delightful after lounging weeks of mental work with nothing to show. There was something ultimate and real about physical expenditure. Could anything in the world be finer than to be just a very sagacious animal?
A low, gurgling song—it seemed the voice of a woman—came and went among the trees of the garden. Then there was silence. Soon there were footsteps, and two figures appeared in the shadow of some bushes beside the gate which gave upon the lawn beneath him. The figures stood close, and a man's voice, pleading, alternated with low laughter in the tone which previously had been the tone of the song. At last the man moved forward, and the woman, still laughing, allowed herself to be kissed. As Peter drew instinctively back he heard her laughter muted by the man's lips. The incident stirred Peter more than he cared to acknowledge. He heard his heart beating, and saw his hand tremble on the sill.
He angrily shut the window, and, lighting the lamps, took down his books from the shelf. But the books would not hold his brain. The stifled laugh of the woman by the gate echoed there. He caught himself staring at the page, restless, feeling that the room oppressed him. It seemed that life was beating at the window, that the room in which he sat was unvisited, and that he was holding the visitor at bay.
He gave up all pretence of reading, and again let in the air. He stared into the garden, which now seemed the heart of the world. The figures by the gate had vanished, but Peter fancied he heard, from the dark, whiffs of talk, and breathing movements.
At last there were steps unmistakable, and the same low song Peter had first heard. This time the woman was alone. She carried a hat in her hand. She stood by the gate a moment, and pushed the pins into her hair. Then she came over the lawn into the light of the house window, walking free and lithe. She paused at the window and looked mischievously in upon the old couple below. Clearly she had come to surprise them. She opened the door upon them in a gleam of sly excitement. Peter saw with a renewed beating of the heart how full were the smiling lips he had heard stifled into silence. His mind threw back the girl, as she stood in the light, into the shadow of a man's embrace.
A clamour of greeting from below scattered his thoughts.
"Why, if it isn't Bess!" he heard the old man say. Then there was a hearty kissing, and the door was shut on a murmur of welcoming talk.