"Do you hear, Thomas? She's coming; she's coming to us, for always. You
wanted her, didn't you? You wanted her nearly as much as I did, only you
didn't know it so well.... Oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy, oh, Lucy ... I've wanted
you so ..."

"I've wanted you too," she said. "I haven't talked about that part of it,
'cause it's so obvious, and I knew you knew. All the time, even when I
thought I cared for Denis, I was only half a person without you. Of
course, I always knew that, without thinking much about it, from the time
we were babies. Only I didn't know it meant this; I thought it was more
like being brother and sister, and that we could both be happy just
seeing each other sometimes. It's only rather lately that I've known it
had to be everything. There's nothing at all to say about the way we
care, Peter, because it's such an old stale thing; it's always been, and
I s'pose it always will be. 'Tisn't a new, surprising, sudden thing, like
my falling in love with Denis. It's so deep, it's got root right down at
the bottom, before we can either of us remember. It's like this ivy
that's all over the ground, and out of which all the little flowers
and things grow. And when it's like that...."

"Yes," said Peter, "when it's like that, there's only one way to take.
What's the good of fighting against life? We're not going to fight any
more, Thomas and I. We're going simply to grab everything we can get.
The more things the better; I always knew that. Who wants to be a
miserable Franciscan on the desert hills? It's so unutterably profane.
Here begins the new life."

They sat in silence together on the creeping, earth-rooted ivy out of
which all the little flowers and things grew; and all round them the