Separate thoughts rose quiveringly from the blur. He thought of a lantern and Samhain. Samhain, the summer-ending of the druids! Perhaps this was the summer ending of his youth and hope. And he had drank in Adam's room that Samhain night to Destiny—Destiny who had brought him—this!
Still the blur and the separate thoughts stinging into his consciousness like poisoned arrows. Whitaker's voice, persistent and analytical, rang in his ears. The King of Youth! Kenny laughed aloud and tears stung at his eyes. He blinked and laughed again. Why, he was growing up all at once! John would be pleased. Thoughts of Whitaker, Brian, his farcical penance and Joan, became a brilliant phantasmagoria from which for an interval nothing emerged separate or distinct. Then sharp and clear came the dread of Brian's death and the ride over the sleet with Frank. The steering wheel strained in his aching hands and the wheels slid dangerously … He did not want to be a failure … He wanted passionately after all the turmoil to be Brian's successful parent. If in this instance there was a curious need to wreck his own life in order that he might parent Brian with success, he must not make a mess of it. Once, accidentally, John said, he had almost shipwrecked Brian's life and Brian had stepped out—just in the nick of time. He must not do that again. Brian had suffered enough from self rampant in others.
The King of Youth! … The King of Youth! … And Brian was twenty-four years old. He must not make him—older. This sharp aging all in a moment was fraught with pain.
His weary ears resented the mocking persistence of Whitaker's voice. Kenny's happy-go-lucky self-indulgence, it said, had often spelled for Brian discomfort of a definite sort… Well, it—should—not—spell—pain… And if in the past his generosity had always been congenial, now it should hurt. Was he about to learn something of the psychology of sacrifice that Adam had said he ought to know?
He swung rebelliously to his feet. Why must the fullness of life come through sacrifice? Why must all things good and permanent and true come only out of suffering? Why must men pay for their dreams with pain?
He moved mechanically toward the door. … Yes, he cared more for Joan's happiness than for his own. And she was suffering. Why, the tired truth of it was, he loved them both enough to want to see them happy … And he would be a part of Don's erratic atonement.
He smiled wryly and realized with a start that he was already out-of-doors, walking dazedly toward the cabin in the pines. The fresh, sweet wind blew through his hair and into his face, but the blur persisted, filled with voices and memories and promptings from God alone knew where.
The odor of pine was sharply reminiscent… And then with a shock that stung him out of inhibition he was staring in at the cabin window. Joan sat by the table, her head upon her arm, her shoulders heaving.
"Poor child!" he said heavily. "Poor child!" And savagely cursed the summer pictures that flamed in his mind at the sight of her. The cabin, the wistaria ladder, the punt, the girl by the willow in the gold brocade—
Well, he must go hurriedly toward that door or not at all. His courage was failing.