Llewellyn smiled to himself. This, he thought, was the courting pattern of the island. The girls were beautiful with a proud dark beauty that would probably not outlast youth. In ten years, perhaps less, they would look like this elderly woman who was waddling up the hill on her husband’s arm, stout, good-humoured, and still dignified in spite of her shapelessness.
Llewellyn went on down the steep, narrow street. It came out on the harbour front. Here there were caf?s with broad terraces where people sat and drank little glasses of brightly-coloured drinks. Quite a throng of people were walking up and down in front of the caf?s. Here again their gaze registered Llewellyn as a foreigner, but without any overwhelming interest. They were used to foreigners. Ships put in, and foreigners came ashore, sometimes for a few hours, sometimes to stay-though not usually for long, since the hotels were mediocre and not much given to refinements of plumbing. Foreigners, so the glances seemed to say, were not really their concern. Foreigners were extraneous and had nothing to do with the life of the island.
Insensibly, the length of Llewellyn’s stride shortened. He had been walking at his own brisk transatlantic pace, the pace of a man going to some definite place, and anxious to get there with as much speed as is consistent, with comfort.
But there was, now, no definite place to which he was going. That was as true spiritually as physically. He was merely a man amongst his fellow kind.
And with that thought there came over him that warm and happy consciousness of brotherhood which he had felt increasingly in the arid wastes of the last months. It was a thing almost impossible to describe-this sense of nearness to, of feeling with, his fellow-men. It had no purpose, no aim, it was as far removed from beneficence as anything could be. It was a consciousness of love and friendliness that gave nothing, and took nothing, that had no wish to confer a benefit or to receive one. One might describe it as a moment of love that embraced utter comprehension, that was endlessly satisfying, and that yet could not, by very reason of what it was, last.
How often, Llewellyn thought, he had heard and said those words: “Thy loving kindness to us and to all men.”
Man himself could have that feeling, although he could not hold it long.
And suddenly he saw that here was the compensation, the promise of the future, that he had not understood. For fifteen or more years he had been held apart from just that-the sense of brotherhood with other men. He bad been a man set apart, a man dedicated to service. But now, now that the glory and the agonising exhaustion were done with, he could become once more a man among men. He was no longer required to serve-only to live.
Llewellyn turned aside and sat down at one of the tables in a caf?. He chose an inside table against the back wall where he could look over the other tables to the people walking in the street, and beyond them to the lights of the harbour, and the ships that were moored there.
The waiter who brought his order asked in a gentle, musical voice:
“You are American? Yes?”
Yes, Llewellyn said, he was American.
A gentle smile lit up the waiter’s grave face.
“We have American papers here. I bring them to you.”
Llewellyn checked his motion of negation.
The waiter went away, and came back with a proud expression on his face, carrying two illustrated American magazines.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome, se?or.”
The periodicals were two years old, Llewelyn noted. That again pleased him. It emphasised the remoteness of the island from the up-to-date stream. Here at least, he thought, there would not be recognition.
His eyes closed for a moment, as he remembered all the various incidents of the last months.
“Aren’t you-isn’t it? I thought I recognised you….”
“Oh, do tell me-you are Dr. Knox?”
“You’re Llewellyn Knox, aren’t you? Oh, I do want to tell you how terribly grieved I was to hear-”
“I knew it must be you! What are your plans, Dr. Knox? Your illness was so terrible. I’ve heard you’re writing a book? I do hope so. Giving us a message?”