brows recalled Hilda's.
Possibly he had Hilda's look! Or was that fancy? Edwin was sure that
he would never have guessed George's parentage.

"Now!" he warned. "Hold tight." And, going behind the boy, he strongly
clasped his slim little waist in its blue sailor-cloth, and sent the
whole affair--swing-seat and boy and all--flying to the skies. And the
boy shrieked in the violence of his ecstasy, and his cap fell on the
grass. Edwin worked hard without relaxing.

"Go on! Go on!" The boy shriekingly commanded.

And amid these violent efforts and brusque delicious physical contacts,
Edwin was calmly penetrated and saturated by the mystic effluence that
is disengaged from young children. He had seen his father dead, and had
thought: "Here is the most majestic and impressive enigma that the earth
can show!" But the child George--aged nine and seeming more like
seven--offered an enigma surpassing in solemnity that of death. This
was Hilda's. This was hers, who had left him a virgin. With a singular
thrilled impassivity he imagined, not bitterly, the history of Hilda.
She who was his by word and by kiss, had given her mortal frame to the
unknown Cannon--yielded it. She had conceived. At some moment when he,
Edwin, was alive and suffering, she had conceived. She had ceased to be
a virgin. Quickly, with an astounding quickness--for was not George
nine years old?--she had passed from virginity to motherhood. And he
imagined all that too; all of it; clearly. And here, swinging and
shrieking, exerting the powerful and unique charm of infancy, was the
miraculous sequel! Another individuality; a new being; definitely
formed, with character and volition of its own; unlike any other
individuality in the universe! Something fresh! Something unimaginably
created! A phenomenon absolutely original of the pride and the tragedy
of life! George!

Yesterday she was a virgin, and to-day there was this! And this might
have been his, ought to have been his! Yes, he thrilled secretly amid
all those pushings and joltings! The mystery obsessed him. He had no
rancour against Hilda. He was incapable of rancour, except a kind of
wilful, fostered rancour in trifles. Thus he never forgave the inventor
of Saturday afternoon Bible-classes. But rancour against Hilda! No!
Her act had been above rancour, like an act of Heaven! And she existed
yet. On a spot of the earth's surface entitled Brighton, which he could
locate up