A deep, all-pervading contentment surrounded Jasper Penny, an
unreasoning, happy warmth. He said nothing, his stick now striking on
the boards, now sinking into earth, and gazed down at Susan, her face
hid by the rim of her bonnet. This companionship was the best, all, that
life had to offer. He felt no need to importune her about the future,
their marriage; curiously it seemed as though they had been married, and
were walking in the security, the peace, of a valid and enduring bond.
There was no necessity for talk, laborious explanation, periods
infinitely more empty than this silence. They walked as close to each
other as her skirt would permit; and at times her muff, swinging on a
wrist, would brush softly against him. How strangely different the
actual values of existence were from the emphasized, trite moments and
emotions. In the middle of his life, at the point of his greatest
capability for experience, his most transcendent happiness came from the
present, the deliberate, unquestioning walk with Susan, the aimless
progress through an invisible city and under a masked clear heaven of
stars. No remembered thrill compared with it, reached the same height,
achieved a similar dignity of consummation.
The way became more uneven; low clustered sheds rose out of the darkness
against a deeper black beyond, and they came to the river.
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