For a few days, after being with Eris, enough of her in him lasted so that he could get on with his novel. Then he needed her again. But he realised his necessity only when he had gone on for a while without her.
Dark days came for the boy; incredulity, alarm, chagrin, the struggle renewed, doubt, helplessness, and the subconscious cry for her, never written nor voiced, yet, somehow heard by her at the edge of the other ocean.
Always the occult appeal was answered; always she responded in a passion of tenderness and abnegation—her promise that the days of separation were drawing to their end, that soon she would come to him forever.
She came when May was ending.
He thought she seemed a trifle taller;—had never dreamed she was as lovely a thing;—yet should have been prepared—for always she had been a series of enchanting revelations.
It transpired that she still had a few days left of her career—spots to fill in with “Eastern stuff,” where the continuity called for it—a location here, a set or two to be knocked together, nothing exacting.
Then the professional career of Eris was to be “irised out.”
“Never!” repeated Annan, holding her so that he could see deeply in her grey eyes. And saw a tiny image there, reflected—the miniature of himself.
“Well,” she murmured, “that event is with God, darling. But I don’t think there’s much doubt, because I love children.... And anyway——”