Her eyes followed his. "I can see the forest through it. Do you remember the great pine above the spring?"
His gaze still roamed. "And you call this home?"
"Yes, it is home."
"Without a man?"
She smiled. "Do you think there can be no home without a man?"
He drank his coffee; then, putting down the cup, rose and moved about the deep and wide place. She watched him from her armchair, long and slim as Diana in her black robe. He looked at the walls with their rows of cabined thought and the pictures above, at the great library table with its tokens of work, and then, standing before the wide, clear windows, at the multitudinous lights of the world without. A sound as of a distant sea came through the glass. "And without a child?"
Her clear voice sounded behind him. "You are mistaken," she said. "My work is my child. One human being serves and expresses in one way and one in another, and I think it is not the office which is higher or lower, but only the mind with which the office is performed. Did I ever meet a man whom I loved and who was my comrade, and who loved me and saw in me his comrade, my home would probably open to that man. And we two might say, 'Now in cleanliness and joy and awe will we bring a child into our home.' ... I think that would be a happy thing to happen. But if it does not happen, none the less will I have my earthly home as I have my unearthly, and be happy in it, and none the less will I do world-work and rejoice in the doing. And if it happened, it would be but added bliss—it would be by no means all the bliss, or all the world, nor should it be. We grow larger than that.... And now, having answered your question, come! let us sit down and talk about what you are doing and when you are going down to Hawk Nest. I had a letter from Gilead Balm last week—from Aunt Serena."
He came and sat down. "The last time I was at Gilead Balm—two years and a half ago—they said they had ceased to write to you."
"They have begun again," said Hagar calmly. "Dear Ralph, we live in the twentieth century. You yourself are here to-night, eating my bread and salt."
"Have you been to Gilead Balm?"