"But why, Stephen?"
"So that I could buy my dreams. So that I could purchase peace with little dabs of brown in a pipe-bowl, little puffs of white in the palm of my hand, little drops of liquid on a ball of cotton. So that I could drug myself with dirt—and forget the dirt and remember England."
He rose to his feet with that swift grace of his, and Daphne rose too, slowly.
"I am going now; will you walk to the gate with me?"
He matched his long step to hers, watching the troubled wonder on her small white face intently.
"How old are you, my Dryad?"
"I am seventeen."
"Seventeen! Oh, God be good to us, I had forgotten that one could be seventeen. What's that?"
He paused, suddenly alert, listening to a distant whistle, sweet on the summer air.
"Oh, that—that is Robin."