“ ...from Christopher Johns!”
“Maybe he’s been so durn unconventional these forty years because he hadn’t found himself. Maybe he feels, now he can look at last straight at you and himself and understand, it’d be good to be conventional: like rolling in warm blankets which the hard days’ work has paid for.”
She felt the dissonance of her feet striking the rutted road beside his.
“There must have been a frost last night.”
“Look at that maple! It’s a blazing red, because there was a frost.”
She looked. He was keeping step.
“I mean it, Fanny. It’s nearly two years since I’ve known you ... nearly two years you’ve worked for me ... one year we’re—well—lovers though I fear the word for the rare wonder you have given me—why, why? But now it is a blossom of knowing, a whole Spring of knowing, woman! There has been Sylvia Frau, there has been Sadie. I chuck ’em both, and when it is done we marry.”
“Jonathan! I want you to walk quiet ... miles and miles beside me quiet, today all day—do you understand? I am listening for something.”
She knew he would, clutching his stick behind him in two fists.
Two years ... they tramped ... two years....