“This is another sort of baptism than that which restored my youth. For youth this child already has,—to every seeming,” the god said, a bit unaccountably. “Therefore I now release this child whom I did not create, I release him from the bondage of the woman and of the Adversary who caused him to live upon this earth. I decree a forgiveness for the seven crimes. I cry a remission of the seven punishments.” “I must say, though, you have been long enough about it,” Maya placidly observed.... As for Gerald, now that the ceremony was over, he was unaffectedly hugging Theodorick, and telling him that he was far too big a boy to be kissing people, and the vaguely puzzled, clinging child was asking, But who started it, Father?... And the storm god was saying to Maya, “Do you forget, my dear Havvah, that it is from your service I am releasing him?” She answered, still quite placidly: “So far as that goes, the imp has well earned a holiday; and it is not as if I were dependent upon him. No, but I confess to wondering—and not for the first time, either,—just what you may be up to.” 40. On the Turn of a Leaf SO THE Oriental storm god went back into the world of everyday, to look for his old shrines upon Sinai and Horeb: and Gerald was happily rid of a future subject whom, he could not but feel, it would have been a bit awkward to have as a subject. And the evening passed tranquilly, although it seemed to Gerald that Theodorick was rather moody and quiet after his christening. But it was not until the next day that Theodorick, just after breakfast, spoke with a voice which seemed to Gerald not quite the voice of a child: and Theodorick told his parents he wanted to go down into Antan. Gerald was troubled. Yet he suggested, with very careful levity, “If—?” “If you please,” the but half-smiling, ugly, so dear brat now added, docilely. “Why, it must be as your father says,” Maya replied. She had paused in her sweeping off of the porch, and for a moment she held the broom slantwise as she meditated over the boy’s notion. “But, for one, I see no great harm in your having a little outing, for I will put a protection on you. Only, you must promise to be back in good time to have your face and hands washed for supper.” Gerald said forlornly, “But what are those small yellow things you are sweeping from the porch, my dear?” “They are fallen leaves from a sycamore-tree, left here last night by that wind, Gerald: and I really do wish you would not ask such silly questions, when I was talking about something quite different.” “But that means summer is ending, Maya. It means an end of all growing. It means that not anything now will become any larger or more lovely.” “Upon my word, but I never did hear of any such nonsense as you do talk sometimes, for a grown man, Gerald, as if summer did not always end!”