Page:Son of the wind.djvu/430

RV 412 She began to sob. He felt her arms around his head, her cheek against his forehead and the hot rain of her tears. She said his name, and at first nothing but that over and over, as if it were he only who needed consolation. It did not matter to her, she passionately assured him, it did not matter at all to her that Son of the Wind was dead. She was glad, glad, glad that it was so!

He regarded her in dreary amazement. How could she lightly dismiss death, that final and terrible fact? She had never known it, perhaps, never grasped it, or caused it. What was it that looked so much worse to her? He had forgotten. It was not real things that moved her, but the thoughts she had about them. He did not understand what was going on in her mind, and he never would. But her shoulder was soft, and her eyes, red with weeping, and sad, were valiantly for him. He seemed to be among the pieces of something that had been his, something as frail and far away from life as one of her thoughts. He left it to her. It was for women to gather up the broken pieces, patiently to fit them together and find how to make the figure of Love; breathe in his lips, and wake the god from the dead ideal.