The Blue Star, Fletcher Pratt [essential books to read .TXT] 📗
- Author: Fletcher Pratt
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“I do not know, but I think not in the long run. If Prince Pavinius has beaten the Tritulaccans so badly . . .” He touched the jacket where the cold stone lay. “This is not me, and I’ll not be ruled by it, no more than you by your gift of witchery.”
She shuddered slightly. “It is a gift I never wished.”
Now his face showed trouble. He stood up and paced the floor, then turned to the inn portal, where after a moment she joined him, looking out. The sun had daunted down the clouds, picking everything out in winter’s white gold; beneath them the river hurried past, carrying little pieces of ice against the black boats. At last he said; “Somewhere I have lost the line. . . . I suppose that the most we can do is try to use the lesser evil to overcome the greater, forgiving what we can. . . . It is I who ask you to forgive me.”
She put an arm around his waist. “You do not need to. I think I love you.”
For an enchanted moment they stood so. Then Rodvard’s hands went to his neck, and with a swift motion, he drew out the Blue Star, over his head and holding it in his hand, glanced at the stream and then at Lalette.
“Yes,” she said. It made only a small splash where it struck the water.
EpilogueIn view of the speed with which the low-hung clouds were driving past the window, there would evidently be no business with ducks that day. Hodge helped himself to more coffee.
“I wonder what happened to them afterward,” he said.
“Does it matter?” said Penfield. “When an emotional problem is solved, the others become unreal.”
“You don’t consider poverty a real problem?” asked McCall.
“Only in a social and relative sense. Go look at the natives in the hill-country of any Latin-American state. They live on rice, beans and fifteen cents a day, and remain quite happy.”
Hodge said; “I agree that poverty is a minor matter in this particular case. But it seems to me that you’re assuming too much when you speak of the emotional problem of that couple as solved. It’s not like a sum in arithmetic, with a simple answer in definite figures. There are all sorts of sub- and side-problems involved, to which no definite values can be assigned. For instance, isn’t the memory of the girl, Leece, together with one of Lalette’s outbursts of temper, going to produce an explosive mixture at some point? And aren’t they keeping a good deal from each other?”
Penfield’s long face was thoughtful. “There are secrets in the background of every union,” he said. “Even secrets as black as the murder by witchcraft, and as inexplicable as the failure and recovery of the Blue Star. But it seems to me that they are like the disagreements of parties in a politically stable state. Once the essential agreement to abide has been reached, any difficulties can be resolved or compromised. Another thing—these people have a capacity for . . . well, close attunement to each other. More of it than we have. What puzzles me—” he took a pull at his cigarette “—is a certain preoccupation with sex.”
McCall laughed. “Since it was the product of all three of us, that probably came out of Hodge’s mind somehow. Persons of your age and mine . . .”
Hodge said; “I don’t know where it came from, but I think I can explain it. It goes with religion, which is so often an outgrowth of sex—or a substitute for it.”
“What really interests me,” said McCall, “is what happened in a political sense.”
“Well, the short-range developments seem fairly obvious,” said Penfield, “and long-range ones are always unpredictable.”
“I wonder if it really exists,” said Hodge, as Penfield had the night before.
Penfield got up, went to the window, and looked out at the scudding clouds. “I wonder if we do,” he said.
Transcriber’s Notes Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication. Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged. Provided a new cover image for free and unrestricted use with this eBook. In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)[The end of The Blue Star by Fletcher Pratt]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Blue Star, by Fletcher Pratt
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