Kennaston could not ever be sure; the broken dream remained an enigma; but he got sweet terror and happiness of the dream, for all that, tasting his moment of inexplicable poignant emotion: and therewith he was content. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ VII Treats of Witches, Mixed Drinks, and the Weather MEANWHILE, I used to see Kennaston nearly every day.... Looking back, I recollect one afternoon when the Kennastons were calling on us. It was the usual sort of late-afternoon call customarily exchanged by country neighbors.... “We have been intending to come over for ever so long,” Mrs. Kennaston explained. “But we have been in such a rush, getting ready for the summer—” “We only got the carpets up yesterday,” my wife assented. “Riggs just kept promising and promising, but he did finally get a man out—” “Well, the roads are in pretty bad shape,” I suggested, “and those vans are fearfully heavy—” “Still, if they would just be honest about it,” Mrs. Kennaston bewailed—“and not keep putting you off—No, I really don’t think I ever saw the Loop road in worse condition—” “It’s the long rainy spell we ought to have had in May,” I informed her. “The seasons are changing so, though, nowadays that nobody can keep up with them.” “Yes, Felix was saying only to-day that we seem no longer to have any real spring. We simply go straight from winter into summer.” “I was endeavoring to persuade her,” Kennaston amended, “that it was foolish to go away as long as it stays cool as it is.” “Oh, yes, _now_!” my wife conceded. “But the paper says we are in for a long heat period about the fifteenth. For my part, I think July is always our worst month.” “It is just that you feel the heat so much more during the first warm days,” I suggested. “Oh, no!” my wife said, earnestly; “the nights are cool in August, and you can stand the days. Of course, there are apt to be a few mosquitoes in September, but not many if you are careful about standing water—” “The drain-pipe to the gutter around our porch got stopped somehow, last year”—this Kennaston contributed, morosely—“and we had a terrible time.” “—Then there is always so much to do, getting the children started at school,” my wife continued—“everything under the sun needed at the last moment, of course! And the way they change all the school-books every year is simply ridiculous. So, if I had my way, we would always go away early, and be back again in good time to get things in shape—” “Oh, yes, if we could have our way!”—Mrs. Kennaston could not deny that—“but don’t your servants always want August off, to go home? I know ours do: and, my dear, you simply don’t dare say a word.”