But I must have seen! My initiation was pronounced successful. From that hour all veils were withdrawn, and I was made free of the magic circle. . . .
It was a dip in Lethe. Dinner was forgotten—the long miles home and the broken bridle. A powerful enchantment had done its work. For me, only the poised moment of joy was real. Nothing else mattered, nothing else existed, while that poised fragile moment was mine. We talked or were silent—it was all one. And when dusk crept in, and a grateful wood-thrush praised it, we still lingered to join in that praise. . . . Then a whippoorwill began to call insistently, grievously, from very far off. It was the whippoorwill that shattered my poised crystal moment of perfect joy.
"Those poor horses," I said.
"Oh!" cried Susan, springing up, "how could we let them starve! I'm starved, too, Ambo—aren't you? What sillies we are!"
We got home safely, after some trifling difficulties, past ten o'clock. . . .
When the lamp is shattered
The light in the dust lies dead——
Only it doesn't, always—thank God! Memories. . . . And this was but one. Oh, no; I was not to be alone. I should never really be alone. . . .
XIII
The morning after Jimmy had dined with us, Susan, at my request, brought Miss Goucher to my study, and we had a good long talk together. And first of all the problem of Gertrude loomed before us, starting up ghostlike at a chance remark, and then barring all progress with more practical considerations, till laid. Neither Susan's telegram nor her private interview with Gertrude had been discussed between us; I had nervously shied off from both matters in my dread of seeming to question Susan's motives. But now Susan herself, to put it crudely, insisted on a show-down.
"The air needed clearing, Ambo, and I sent the telegram hoping to clear it by raising a storm. But, as Sister reminded me at breakfast, storms don't always clear the air—even good hard ones; they sometimes leave it heavier than ever. I'm afraid that's what my storm has done. Has it, Ambo? What happened when Mrs. Hunt came to see you here? But perhaps I ought to tell you first what happened between us?"