Would the processions of colonists going there spoil it? Would the women going there see in it a great mansion? Or, instead, would they simply go there to escape here—escape from exhaustion, failure, anguish, bitterness—and, as always, take these things along with them? Would they still live in grimy little syndromes of endless antagonism, bickering in their foolish frustrations, because they had no wisdom about what to do with this newly speared deer?
Oh, not on New Earth!
Suddenly Miss Kitty knew what she must do. If that one particular mansion needed someone to make it into a home, why not herself? And who had a better right?
Somewhere, there, perhaps that very one striding along under the eaves of that building across the street, with his hatbrim pulled down, leaning against the rain, somewhere, close, there must be a man who could share her resolution and her dream. A man of the same breed as the lieutenant and Sam, a man who carried his head high, his shoulders back, who had keen, intelligent eyes, and laughter.
Yes, now she wanted to see the two men after all, and meet their lucky wives, and see their children, the kind of children she might have had.
Might yet have!
At a flash of memory, she smiled a little ruefully, and yet with an inner peace.
"I am not so old," she repeated in a whisper. "I still have time for at least a half dozen sons and daughters before—before my barren years."