Marget and Richard, who seemed truly Marget-and-Richard, one word, had said, "a week in Rome," and that was what seemed to pass. They saw as in old travel they had seen, they went about as in old travel they had gone about, they enjoyed as in old times they had enjoyed, but with freedom and power and joy that left the old behind. All was vigor, heightened and transfiguring perception, and yet friendly, homelike, not solemn nor stilted, the boy here enjoying like a boy. Frances became aware of a control, keeping experience to a vivid and fair finiteness, not sacrificing current form. That was for the boy's sake, perhaps for her and Robert also. And after Rome, Athens--an Athens, too, sublimed. And after Athens, for the splendid richness of things and for the boy, the vast North, forest and plain, and an intense exhilaration of life that swept out upon the great sea and encircled the earth. They spent long, bright days in ships and at ports of call. Then they went to China, and India, and Egypt. They crossed the desert of Sahara, and again in a great ship passed between the Pillars of Hercules. Followed ocean days, and that greater will and awareness slowly diminishing, gently returning upon its still habitual self. Diminishing, diminishing, slower, slower, a little melancholy, but tranquil, with a subtle smile.... A sense of a giant woman in stone rising from an islet in a harbor--a sense of a familiar city in the year 1920--a sense of dreamy farewells, a quiet darkness and lapse.... Frances turned herself in her bed at Sweet Rocket. Starlight flooding the room dimly revealed walls and furniture. Across by the other window Robert lay sleeping. How much time had passed, or how little, or how widely could you live in no time at all? Here was reality, but there, too, had been reality! It had been real, that companionship and that travel. The memory of it was memory of reality. Mind had attended there not less, but more than here. The whole compound self had achieved a unity and power. Achievement--ungrown wings--first flights! She thought: "The possibilities! O life of life, our possibilities!" Old warmth and drowsiness took her. There was a kindly fatigue, as though she had walked on a bright day to mountain top and back and now thrown herself down for rest. She saw the stars through half-open eyes, then slept. The sun was streaming in when she waked; Robert already up and dressing. She raised herself upon her arm. "Good morning!" "Good morning!" She rubbed her eyes. "There is a strange and happy feeling of 'there' being here!" Robert said: "That somehow hits it. I had the most vivid dream of long, sunny travel, with you and Marget and Richard and Stuart Black! It wasn't like a dream. I feel as if I were just off the ship--had all the memories and a most tremendous refreshment! I could take down any wall this morning!" "Why do you put it that way?"