His heart is divided--so let's
divide the song, too. It'll belong to both of us. You--you made it
rather easier for me to come back here; do you know that?"
"Why did you stay away so long?" Kirk asked.
Martin kicked a pebble into the basin of the pool, where it rebounded
with a sharp click.
"I don't know," he said, after a pause. "It was very far away from the
garden--those places down there make you forget a lot. And when the
Maestro gave up his public life and retired, word trickled down to the
tropics after a year or so that he'd died. And there's a lot more that
you wouldn't understand, and I wouldn't tell you if you could."
Another pebble spun into the pool.
"Are you going to stay, now?"
"Yes, I'm going to stay."
"I'm glad," said Kirk. They sat still for some moments, and then Kirk
had a sudden, shy inspiration.
"Do you think," he ventured, "do you think it would be nice if the
fountain could play, now?"
"Eh?" said Martin, waking from brooding thoughts.
"The fountain--it hasn't, you know, since you went. And the garden's been
asleep ever since, just like a fairy-tale."
"A fairy-tale! H'm!" said Martin, with a queer laugh. "Well, let's wake
the fountain, then."
They found the device that controlled the water, and wrenched it free.
Kirk ran back down the path to listen, breathless, at the edge of the
pool. There came first the rustle of water through long unused channels,
then the shallow splash against the empty basin.
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