hair was glossy with rain. . . . People take such silly risks--And
where was Li Ho? Why wasn't he carrying the wood? Not that the wood
seemed to bother Desire in the least.

The captive on the sofa sighed. It was no use trying to hide from
himself his longing to be out there with her in that heavenly
Spring-pierced air, revelling in its bloomy wetness; strong and fit
in muscle and nerve, carrying wood, getting his head soaked, doing
all the foolish things which youth does with impunity and careless
joy. The new restlessness, which he had come so far to quiet, broke
over him in miserable, taunting waves.

Why was he here on the sofa instead of out there in the rain? The
war? But he was too inherently honest to blame the war. It was,
perhaps, responsible for the present state of his sciatic nerve but
not for the selling of his birthright of sturdy youth. The causes of
that lay far behind the war. Had he not refused himself to youth
when youth had called? Had he not shut himself behind study doors
while Spring crept in at the window? The war had come and dragged
him out. Across his quiet, ordered path its red trail had stretched
and to go forward it had been necessary to go through. The Spences
always went through. But Nature, every inch a woman, had made him
pay for scorning her. She had killed no fatted calf for her
prodigal.

So here he was, at thirty-five, envying a girl who could carry wood
without weariness. The envy had become acute irritation by the time
the wood was stacked and the wood-carrier brought her shining hair
and rain-tinted cheeks into the living-room.