And as the years passed, the lightning cleared the sky more and more
rarely, less and less the blue showed. Gradually the grey lid sank down
upon them, as if it would be permanent.

Why didn't Egbert do something, then? Why didn't he come to grips with
life? Why wasn't he like Winifred's father, a pillar of society, even if
a slender, exquisite column? Why didn't he go into harness of some sort?
Why didn't he take _some_ direction?

Well, you can bring an ass to the water, but you cannot make him drink.
The world was the water and Egbert was the ass. And he wasn't having any.
He couldn't: he just couldn't. Since necessity did not force him to work
for his bread and butter, he would not work for work's sake. You can't
make the columbine flowers nod in January, nor make the cuckoo sing in
England at Christmas. Why? It isn't his season. He doesn't want to. Nay,
he _can't_ want to.

And there it was with Egbert. He couldn't link up with the world's work,
because the basic desire was absent from him. Nay, at the bottom of him
he had an even stronger desire: to hold aloof. To hold aloof. To do
nobody any damage. But to hold aloof. It was not his season.

Perhaps he should not have married and had children. But you can't stop
the waters flowing.

Which held true for Winifred, too. She was not made to endure aloof. Her
family tree was a robust vegetation that had to be stirring and
believing. In one direction or another her life _had_ to go. In her own
home she had known nothing of this diffidence which she found in Egbert,
and which she could not understand, and which threw her into such dismay.