"Nor I," said Kenny. "But the year of waiting ends at Samhain."
"Yes," said Joan, coloring. "I have given Don the money," she added. "If now he would only study!"
"He shall!" said Kenny and set himself to the finishing of Brian's winter task. That sacrifice, at least, he decided, nagging Don into hours of study that were a godsend to them both, should not become an anticlimax. He had paid once--in ragged money. For Joan's sake he would pay willingly again in time. Brian and Joan and Don--and he himself, with indolence for once in his life unwelcome, would be happier for the effort. But there were moments of clash and irritation when Don's energy flagged and he flung his books aside in black disgust.
"No use," he said moodily. "I can't work. I've got too much on my mind."
"Shut up!" thundered Kenny, "I don't propose to quarrel now or at any other time."
They glared at each other in nervous indignation.
"Brian," Kenny added with a sniff, "was sure you could swing it. I never was. You need balance and a sense of responsibility."
Don gritted his teeth and worked in an inexhaustible spurt of endurance.
"Stop wandering around the room and kicking things," Kenny commanded more than once with his own hand clenched in his hair. "If you don't remember, you don't remember, and that's an end of it. Here's the book. Look it over while I'm smoking."
Once when the clash had a suspicious ring of familiarity, he grinned.
"What's the matter?" demanded Don huffily. "What are you laughing at? Me?"
"No," said Kenny. "I was just thinking of a man I know. Name's Whitaker."
Thus May came with a warm wind of spice and fresh misgivings furrowed the doctor's brow.
"Now that the windows are opened so much," he fretted, "the rumble of that quarry is inferno. The blasts bother him?"
"I thought so. He must have peace and quiet. If Mr. O'Neill is willing, we'll move him to the farm."
By the time the orchard flung out its white prayer of blossoms to the sun, the doctor had his patient at the farm.
Pine-sweet wind still blew around the cabin, the sylvan river laughed in the sun, wistaria hung grape-like on the ladder of vine; but over it all, to Kenny, brooded the pathos of change.
He longed wistfully for the gay vitality of that other summer when every day had been an exquisite intaglio of laughter. There were times when unreasonably he even missed Adam. How the nights in contrast had sharpened the joy of his days! And he hated the village boy who ferried the punt back and forth upon the river, hated the horn with its transforming miracles of reminiscence, for it pointed the nameless lack of sparkle now that struck melancholy into his soul. He had lived in Arcady and jealously he would have hoarded each detail of its charm.