I looked at him swiftly. Did he mean that there was for him some such name? Or did he merely mean that he might mean something, other things being equal?
“That would be a good test,” he added, “for one who couldn’t make up his mind whether he was in love. And it would be a new and decorative branch of phonology. Why doesn’t phonology,” he inquired reasonably, “take up some of these wonderful things instead of harking back to beginnings?”
“Precisely,” said I tenaciously, “and Viola—”
“‘Who is Viola? What is she
That all our swains commend her?’”
he adapted, smiling.
“I’ve wondered,” said I gravely, “that you haven’t asked that of yourself before.”
But having now effectually introduced the matter I looked about me helplessly. What were we to say to Hobart Eddy? To have embroidered a message with silks and cottons would have been a simple matter; but it is difficult to speak heart’s-ease and rue. Moreover, it is absurd to impart one’s theory of life without an invitation. Sometimes even by invitation it is absurd. If only one might embroider it, now! Or if one might merely indicate it, as Pelleas had said of the “Bird Book: Part Two,” for keeping alive the thrill of a thing....
At that our morning was back upon me, with its moment that was like revelation and prophecy and belief. Yet how to give to Hobart Eddy in effect: A momentary knowledge that there is more about a bird and about what he is and about what we are than one commonly supposes. How to tell him that some gracious purpose—like winning the love of Viola—would teach the secret? I longed unspeakably, and so, I know, did Pelleas, to be to him a “restorer of paths to dwell in”—a restorer of the path of In-the-Spring which we feared that he had long lost. Though, indeed, how should one ever lose that path which runs to the end of the world? I looked at Pelleas and surprised him in the midst of the merest glance at me. And when he spoke I knew that he understood.
“Hobart,” said he, “the grosbeaks are here. We saw them this morning.”