Philip Van Doren Stern (ed) (180 page)

I
found
it
happen
so.

I
was
initiated
into
the
secrets
of
their
duty
to
their
people
and
to themselves.
I
learned
the
intricacy
of
the
interests
wherein
all
parties were
involved;
until
it
was
impossible
to
tell
where
duty
ended
and interest
began.
And,
in
the
inevitable
sequel,
I
was
the
confidant
of their
love.
And
I
listened
to
that
endless
tale
with
the
drowsy
acquiescence
of
one
moonstruck
and
gaping
.
.
.
drowsily
nodding;
murmuring
my
yes
and
yes
drowsily.
.
.
.

They
were
good
to
me.
They
were
sisterly
and
brotherly
to
me. By
no
hairsbreadth
of
reticence
was
I
excluded
from
their
thoughts, their
expectations,
their
present
felicity,
and
their
hopes
of
joy
to come.
For
two
people
going
alone
may
have
verbal
and
bodily
restraint
but
the
company
of
a
third
will
set
them
rabid.
It
is
as
though that
unnecessary
presence
were
a
challenge,
or
a
query,
which
they must
dispose
of
or
die.
Therefore,
and
because
of
me,
they
had
to take
each
other's
hand.
They
had
to
fondle
paw
within
paw;
and
gaze searchingly
on
each
other
and
on
me;
with,
for
me,
a
beam
of
trust and
brotherliness
and
inclusion
which
my
mood
found
sottish.

They
were
in
love.

They
whispered
it
to
each
other.
They
said
it
loudly
to
me.
And more
loudly
yet
they
urged
it,
as
though
they
would
proclaim
it
to the
moon.
.
.
.
And
about
their
hands
was
a
vile
activity;
a
lust
of catching;
a
fever
of
relinquishing;
for
they
could
neither
hold
nor withhold
their
hands
from
each
other.

"Do
they
expect
me
to
clasp
their
hands
together,
and
hold
them so
that
they
shall
not
unloose
again?
Do
they
wish
me
to
draw
their heads
together,
so
that
they
may
kiss
by
compulsion?
Am
I
to
be
the page
of
love
and
pull
these
arms
about
each
other?"

We
walked
on,
heedless
of
time;
and
I
heedless
of
all
but
those voices
that
came
to
me
with
an
unending,
unheard
explanation;
the voices
of
those
who
cared
naught
for
me;
who
cared
only
that
I
was there,
an
edge
to
their
voluptuousness.

5^

But
when
one
walks
one
arrives
somewhere.
If
the
environment had
not
changed
we
might
have
gone
on
for
ever.
This
walk
and
talk had
grown
into
us
like
a
monstrous
habit
from
which
we
could
not break
away;
and
until
a
change
came
to
the
eye
our
minds
could
not swerve
from
the
world
they
were
building
nor
our
feet
from
the
grasses we
walked
on.

A
change
did
occur,
mercifully;
the
little
variety
which
might
de-turn
that
level
of
moonbred,
lovesick
continuity
or
inertia;
for
we think
largely
through
the
eyes,
or
our
thoughts
flow
easily
to
the
direction
in
which
our
gaze
is
set.