On the way back from the sick mare¹, Dick paused once to listen to the restless stamp of Mountain Lad and his fellows in the stallion barn. In the quiet air, from somewhere up the hills, came the ringing of a single bell from some grazing animal. A cat’s-paw of breeze fanned him with sudden balmy warmth. All the night was balmy with the faint and almost aromatic² scent³ of ripening⁴ grain and drying grass. The stallion stamped again, and Dick, with a deep breath and realization⁵ that never had he more loved it all, looked up and circled the sky-line where the crests⁶ of the mountains blotted⁷ the field of stars.  
“No, Cato,” he mused⁸ aloud. “One cannot agree with you. Man does not depart from life as from an inn. He departs as from a dwelling⁹, the one dwelling he will ever know. He departs ... nowhere. It is good night. For him the Noiseless One ... and the dark.”
 
He made as if to start, but once again the stamp of the stallions held him, and the hillside bell rang out. He drew a deep inhalation through his nostrils¹⁰ of the air of balm, and loved it, and loved the fair land of his devising.
 
“‘I looked into time and saw none of me there,’” he quoted, then capped it, smiling, with a second quotation¹¹: “’She gat me nine great sons.... The other nine were daughters.’”
 
Back at the house, he did not immediately go in, but stood a space gazing at the far flung lines of it. Nor, inside, did he immediately go to his own quarters. Instead, he wandered through the silent rooms, across the patios¹³, and along the dim-lit halls. His frame of mind was as of one about to depart on a journey. He pressed on the lights in Paula’s fairy patio¹², and, sitting in an austere¹⁴ Roman seat of marble, smoked a cigarette quite through while he made his plans.
 
Oh, he would do it nicely enough. He could pull off a hunting accident that would fool the world. Trust him not to bungle¹⁵ it. Next day would be the day, in the woods above Sycamore Creek¹⁶. Grandfather Jonathan Forrest, the straight-laced Puritan, had died of a hunting accident. For the first time Dick doubted that accident. Well, if it hadn’t been an accident, the old fellow had done it well. It had never been hinted in the family that it was aught but an accident.
 
His hand on the button to turn off the lights, Dick delayed a moment for a last look at the marble babies that played in the fountain and among the roses.
 
“So long, younglings,” he called softly to them. “You’re the nearest I ever came to it.”
 
From his sleeping porch he looked across the big patio to Paula’s porch. There was no light. The chance was she slept.
 
On the edge of the bed, he found himself with one shoe unlaced, and, smiling at his absentness, relaced it. What need was there for him to sleep? It was already four in the morning. He would at least watch his last sunrise. Last things were coming fast. Already had he not dressed for the last time? And the bath of the previous morning would be his last. Mere¹⁷ water could not stay the corruption¹⁸ of death. He would have to shave, however—­a last vanity, for the hair did continue to grow for a time on dead men’s faces.
 
He brought a copy of his will from the wall-safe to his desk and read it carefully. Several minor¹⁹ codicils²⁰ suggested themselves, and he wrote them out in long-hand, pre-dating them six months as a precaution. The last was the endowment of the sages²¹ of the madroño grove²² with a fellowship of seven.
 
He ran through his life insurance policies, verifying the permitted suicide clause in each one; signed the tray of letters that had waited his signature since the previous morning; and dictated²³ a letter into the phonograph to the publisher of his books. His desk cleaned, he scrawled²⁴ a quick summary of income and expense, with all earnings²⁵ from the Harvest mines deducted²⁶. He transposed the summary into a second summary, increasing the expense margins²⁷, and cutting down the income items to an absurdest least possible. Still the result was satisfactory.
 
He tore up the sheets of figures and wrote out a program for the future handling of the Harvest situation. He did it sketchily²⁸, with casual tentativeness, so that when it was found among the papers there would be no suspicions. In the same fashion he worked out a line-breeding program for the Shires, and an in-breeding table, up and down, for Mountain Lad and the Fotherington Princess and certain selected individuals of their progeny²⁹.
 
When Oh My came in with coffee at six, Dick was on his last paragraph of his scheme for rice-growing.
 
“Although the Italian rice may be worth experimenting with for quick maturity,” he wrote, “I shall for a time confine the main plantings in equal proportions to Moti, Ioko, and the Wateribune. Thus, with different times of maturing, the same crews and the same machinery³⁰, with the same overhead, can work a larger acreage than if only one variety is planted.”
 
Oh My served the coffee at his desk, and made no sign even after a glance to the porch at the bed which had not been slept in—­all of which control Dick permitted himself privily³¹ to admire.
 
At six-thirty the telephone rang and he heard Hennessy’s tired voice: “I knew you’d be up and glad to know Alden Bessie’s pulled through. It was a squeak³², though. And now it’s me for the hay.”
 
When Dick had shaved, he looked at the shower, hesitated a moment, then his face set stubbornly. I’m darned if I will, was his thought; a sheer waste of time. He did, however, change his shoes to a pair of heavy, high-laced ones fit for the roughness of hunting. He was at his desk again, looking over the notes in his scribble³³ pads for the morning’s work, when Paula entered. She did not call her “Good morning, merry gentleman”; but came quite close to him before she greeted him softly with:
 
“The Acorn-planter. Ever tireless, never weary Red Cloud.”
 
He noted³⁴ the violet-blue shadows under her eyes, as he arose, without offering to touch her. Nor did she offer invitation.
 
“A white night?” he asked, as he placed a chair.
 
“A white night,” she answered wearily. “Not a second’s sleep, though I tried so hard.”
 
Both were reluctant of speech, and they labored³⁵ under a mutual³⁶ inability to draw their eyes away from each other.
 
“You ... you don’t look any too fit yourself,” she said.
 
“Yes, my face,” he nodded. “I was looking at it while I shaved. The expression won’t come off.”
 
“Something happened to you last night,” she probed, and he could not fail to see the same compassion³⁷ in her eyes that he had seen in Oh Dear’s. “Everybody remarked your expression. What was it?”
 
He shrugged³⁸ his shoulders. “It has been coming on for some time,” he evaded³⁹, remembering that the first hint of it had been given him by Paula’s portrait of him. “You’ve noticed it?” he inquired casually⁴⁰.
 
She nodded, then was struck by a sudden thought. He saw the idea leap to life ere her words uttered it.
 
“Dick, you haven’t an affair?”
 
It was a way out. It would straighten all the tangle⁴¹. And hope was in her voice and in her face.
 
He smiled, shook his head slowly, and watched her disappointment.
 
“I take it back,” he said. “I have an affair.”
 
“Of the heart?”
 
She was eager, as he answered, “Of the heart.”
 
But she was not prepared for what came next. He abruptly⁴² drew his chair close, till his knees touched hers, and, leaning forward, quickly but gently prisoned her hands in his resting on her knees.
 
“Don’t be alarmed, little bird-woman,” he quieted her. “I shall not kiss you. It is a long time since I have. I want to tell you about that affair. But first I want to tell you how proud I am—­proud of myself. I am proud that I am a lover. At my age, a lover! It is unbelievable, and it is wonderful. And such a lover! Such a curious, unusual, and quite altogether remarkable⁴³ lover. In fact, I have laughed all the books and all biology in the face. I am a monogamist. I love the woman, the one woman. After a dozen years of possession I love her quite madly, oh, so sweetly madly.”
 
Her hands communicated her disappointment to him, making a slight, impulsive⁴⁴ flutter to escape; but he held them more firmly.
 
“I know her every weakness, and, weakness and strength and all, I love her as madly as I loved her at the first, in those mad moments when I first held her in my arms.”
 
Her hands were mutinous⁴⁵ of the restraint he put upon them, and unconsciously she was beginning to pull and tug⁴⁶ to be away from him. Also, there was fear in her eyes. He knew her fastidiousness, and he guessed, with the other man’s lips recent on hers, that she feared a more ardent⁴⁷ expression on his part.
 
“And please, please be not frightened, timid, sweet, beautiful, proud, little bird-woman. See. I release you. Know that I love you most dearly, and that I am considering you as well as myself, and before myself, all the while.”
 
He drew his chair away from her, leaned back, and saw confidence grow in her eyes.
 
“I shall tell you all my heart,” he continued, “and I shall want you to tell me all your heart.”
 
“This love for me is something new?” she asked. “A recrudescence?”
 
“Yes, a recrudescence, and no.”
 
“I thought that for a long time I had been a habit to you,” she said.
 
“But I was loving you all the time.”
 
“Not madly.”
 
“No,” he acknowledged. “But with certainty. I was so sure of you, of myself. It was, to me, all a permanent and forever established thing. I plead guilty. But when that permanency was shaken, all my love for you fired up. It was there all the time, a steady, long-married flame.”
 
“But about me?” she demanded.
 
“That is what we are coming to. I know your worry right now, and of a minute ago. You are so intrinsically honest, so intrinsically true, that the thought of sharing two men is abhorrent⁴⁸ to you. I have not misread you. It is a long time since you have permitted me any love-touch.” He shrugged his shoulders “And an equally long time since I offered you a love-touch.”
 
“Then you have known from the first?” she asked quickly.
 
He nodded.
 
“Possibly,” he added, with an air of judicious⁴⁹ weighing, “I sensed it coming before even you knew it. But we will not go into that or other things.”
 
“You have seen...” she attempted to ask, stung almost to shame at thought of her husband having witnessed any caress⁵⁰ of hers and Graham’s.
 
“We will not demean ourselves with details, Paula. Besides, there was and is nothing wrong about any of it. Also, it was not necessary for me to see anything. I have my memories of when I, too, kissed stolen kisses in the pause of the seconds between the frank, outspoken⁵¹ ’Good nights.’ When all the signs of ripeness are visible—­the love-shades and love-notes that cannot be hidden, the unconscious caress of the eyes in a fleeting⁵² glance, the involuntary softening⁵³ of voices, the cuckoo-sob in the throat—­why, the night-parting kiss does not need to be seen. It has to be. Still further, oh my woman, know that I justify⁵⁴ you in everything.”
 
“It... it was not ever... much,” she faltered⁵⁵.
 
“I should have been surprised if it had been. It couldn’t have been you. As it is, I have been surprised. After our dozen years it was unexpected—­”
 
“Dick,” she interrupted him, leaning toward him and searching him. She paused to frame her thought, and then went on with directness. “In our dozen years, will you say it has never been any more with you?”
 
“I have told you that I justify you in everything,” he softened⁵⁶ his reply.
 
“But you have not answered my question,” she insisted. “Oh, I do not mean mere flirtatious⁵⁷ passages, bits of primrose⁵⁸ philandering⁵⁹. I mean unfaithfulness and I mean it technically⁶⁰. In the past you have?”
 
“In the past,” he answered, “not much, and not for a long, long time.”
 
“I often wondered,” she mused.
 
“And I have told you I justify you in everything,” he reiterated⁶¹. “And now you know where lies the justification⁶².”
 
“Then by the same token I had a similar right,” she said. “Though I haven’t, Dick, I haven’t,” she hastened to add. “Well, anyway, you always did preach the single standard.”
 
“Alas, not any longer,” he smiled. “One’s imagination will conjure⁶³, and in the past few weeks I’ve been forced to change my mind.”
 
“You mean that you demand I must be faithful?”
 
He nodded and said, “So long as you live with me.”
 
“But where’s the equity⁶⁴?”
 
“There isn’t any equity,” he shook his head. “Oh, I know it seems a preposterous⁶⁵ change of view. But at this late day I have made the discovery of the ............