Then he returned to his moralisings. “You'll see Ingram, my blessed one, don't you think?”
She said gravely, with hard outlook upon the distant wold, “Yes, I must see him—” and then, with a sudden turn to him and a wondrous veil of tenderness upon her eyes, “You know that I think what you think from now onwards.” Their lips sealed the pact.
He broke away at last. “Practice! Practice! Do let's be practical. Think of this. My house is yours until we marry; that can't be for a week.” A week! This was Senhouse practical. She blushed her answer.
“What will you do? I mustn't turn you out.” He opened his arms wide to the airs of the down.
“I sleep in the open. The stars for me. They shall see you wedded. Meanwhile, I shall wait upon you. But do let us be practical. We wait a week; we marry; but then what shall we do? Shall we reform the world? I think we shall do that in spite of ourselves; for if two people dare to be simple, there's no reason why two million shouldn't.” She lay at peace considering; her blue eyes, searching wonderfully into his, saw peace like a crown of stars.
“I'll tell you what I should like to do,” she said. “I've thought about it this minute. It never occurred to me before, but I should like to teach better than anything in the world.”
He looked far out to the white rim of horizon. He took her very seriously. “It's the highest profession of all, of course. Let's think. I've begun on it already, oddly enough. And yet, you know, it's not odd. Nothing is after our experiences.... We will teach. Woodcraft, weathercraft, husbandry, beast-craft, sky-craft. I can do that much for them. Lit., hum., Greek, Latin, English, Dante. History, shadowy; geography, practical. Tinkering, carpentering, planting. No mathematics; I can't add two to two.”
“But I can,” she told him. “I'll teach the babies, for we must have babies.”
His eyes flashed upon hers for one beating second of full interchange. Then he turned them away, and scanned again the hazy hills. But hers remained on their watch, charged with their wistful dream.
“Our school,” he presently resumed, “I see it. We teach first of all Nature's face and the love of it. We lead their hungry mouths to Nature's breast. No books! No books for them to glue their eyes upon. They shall learn by ear; their eyes have a better book to read in. Classics by ear and by heart, eh?”