“Vic. He knows a lot. I wish I had my ball, but let's go up the river.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Burgess murmured and hugged the little one close to him.
Victor Burleigh was in the little balcony of the dome late that afternoon fixing a defective wiring. Through the open windows he could see the skyline in every direction. The far-reaching gray prairie, overhung by its dome of amethyst bordered round with opal and rimmed with jasper, seemed in every blending tint and tone to call him back to Norrie. The west bluff above the old Kickapoo Corral in the autumn, the glen full of shadow-flecked light under the tender young April leaves, the December landscape as it lay beyond Dr. Fenneben's study windows—these belonged to Elinor. And all of them were blended in this vision of inexpressible grandeur, unfolded to him now from the dome's high vantage place.
“Twice Norrie has let me hold her in my arms and kiss her,” he mused. “When I do that the third time it must be when there will be no remorse to hound me afterward.” He looked down the winding Walnut toward the whirlpool. “I'd rather swim that water than flounder here.”
The sound of footsteps on the rotunda stairs made him turn to see Vincent Burgess just reaching the little balcony of the dome.
“I've come to have a word with you up here,” he said. “We met once before in this rotunda.”
“Yes, down there in the arena,” Vic replied, recalling how like a beast he had felt then. “I was a young hyena that day. Bug Buler came just in time to save both of us. There is a comfort in feeling we can learn something. I've needed books and college professors to temper me to courtesy.”
It was the only apology Vic had ever offered to Burgess, who accepted it as all that he deserved.
“We learn more from men than from books sometimes. I've learned from them how courageous a man may be when the need for sacrifice comes. Sit down, Burleigh, and let me tell you something.”
They sat down on the low seat beside the dome windows. Overhead gleamed the message of high courage, Ad Astra Per Aspera. Below was the artistic beauty of the rotunda, where the evening shadows were deepening.