true. Later the wind among the
blossoms had been chill and fitful and Joan had been unaware of the
romance in the white, sweet drift. Omens! And rain had come, the
blossom storm. And Death had spread its sable wing over the first day
of his love. He shuddered and closed his eyes.

Separate thoughts rose quiveringly from the blur. He thought of a
lantern and Samhain. Samhain, the summer-ending of the druids!
Perhaps this was the summer ending of his youth and hope. And he had
drank in Adam's room that Samhain night to Destiny--Destiny who had
brought him--this!

Still the blur and the separate thoughts stinging into his
consciousness like poisoned arrows. Whitaker's voice, persistent and
analytical, rang in his ears. The King of Youth! Kenny laughed aloud
and tears stung at his eyes. He blinked and laughed again. Why, he
was growing up all at once! John would be pleased. Thoughts of
Whitaker, Brian, his farcical penance and Joan, became a brilliant
phantasmagoria from which for an interval nothing emerged separate or
distinct. Then sharp and clear came the dread of Brian's death and the
ride over the sleet with Frank. The steering wheel strained in his
aching hands and the wheels slid dangerously . . . He did not want to
be a failure . . . He wanted passionately after all the turmoil to be
Brian's successful parent. If in this instance there was a curious
need to wreck his own life in order that he might parent Brian with
success, he must not make a mess of it. Once, accidentally, John said,
he had almost shipwrecked Brian's life and Brian had stepped out--just
in the nick of time. He must not do that again. Brian had suffered
enough from self rampant in others.

The King of Youth! . . . The King of Youth! . . . And Brian was
twenty-four years _old_. He must not make him--older. This sharp
aging all in a moment was fraught with pain.

His weary ears resented the mocking persistence of Whitaker's
voice. Kenny's happy-go-lucky self-indulgence, it said, had often
spelled for Brian discomfort of a definite sort. . . . Well,
it--should--not--spell--pain. . . . And if in the past his generosity
had always been congenial, now it should hurt. Was he about to learn
something of the psychology of sacrifice that Adam had said he ought to
know?

He swung rebelliously to his feet. Why must the fullness of life come
through sacrifice? Why must all things good and permanent and true
come only ou