"Yesterday at this time," she said finally, "Vina Nettleton was here.
She spoke of your great help in her work——"
"Her studio was thrilling to me…. Altogether, getting back to New
York has been my greatest experience."
"You have been away very long?"
"So long that I don't remember leaving, nor anything about it, except the boats and whistles, the elevated railways and the Park, and certain strains of music. I remember seeing the animals, and the hall of that house——"
"Where the light frightened you?"
"Yes. And I remember the bees…. I have ridden through and about the Park several times, but I can't seem to get anything back. I felt like asking questions, as I did long ago, of my mother."
Beth wanted to tell him that she would ride with him sometime and answer questions, but he seemed very near the deep places, and she dared not urge nor interrupt.
"It was very clear to me then, that we needed each other," he added. "A child knows that. She must have answered all the questions in the world, for I was always satisfied. I wonder that she had time to think about her own things…. Isn't it remarkable, and I don't remember anything she said?"
Bedient seemed to be thinking aloud, as if this were the right place to talk of these things. They had been in the foreground of his mind continually, but never uttered before.
"It was always above words—our relation," he went on presently. "Though we must have talked and talked—it is not the words I remember—but realizations of truth which came to me afterward, from them. What a place for a little boy's hand to be!…