affectionate even, as she desired.
At the moment, so softened, so self-reproachful was his mood, he would
willingly have cut off his arm for her could the sacrifice in any manner
have secured her happiness. But there were times when it seemed easier
to give his life for her than to live it with her; when to shed his
blood would have cost less than to make conversation. He yearned over
Virginia, but he could not talk to her. Some impregnable barrier of
personality separated them as if it were a wall. Already they belonged
to different generations; they spoke in the language of different
periods. At forty-seven, that second youth, the Indian summer of the
emotions, which lingers like autumnal sunshine in the lives of most men
and of a few women, was again enkindling his heart. And with this return
of youth, he felt the awakening of infinite possibilities of feeling, of
the ancient ineradicable belief that happiness lies in possession. Love,
which had used up her spirit and body in its service, had left him
untouched by its exactions. While she, having fulfilled her nature, was
content to live anew not in herself, but in her children, the force of
personal desire was sweeping over him again, with all the flame and
splendour of adolescence. The "something missing" waited there, just a
little beyond, as he had seen it waiting in that enchanted May when he
fell in love with Virginia. And between him and his vision of happiness
there interposed merely his undisciplined conscience, his variable,
though honest, desire to do the thing that was right. Duty, which had
controlled Virginia's every step, was as remote and aloof from his life
as was the creed of his fathers. Like his age, he was adrift among
disestablished beliefs, among floating wrecks of what had once been
rules of conduct by which men had lived. And the widening
responsibilities, the deepening consciousness of a force for good
greater than creed or rules, all the awakening moral strength which
would lend balance and power to his age, these things had been weakened
in his character by the indomitable egoism which had ordered his life.
There was nothing for him to fall back upon, nothing that he could
place above the restless surge of his will.

Sitting there in the firelight, with her loving eyes following his
movements, she told him, bit by bit, all the latest gossip of Dinwiddie.
Susan's eldest girl had developed a beautiful voice and was beginning to
take lessons