Faint inner voices warned him at times not to misinterpret his exultant happiness in terms of infallibility and when they called to him he had his moments of humility and panic.
In one of them he tried to coax the fern back to life; once with an alarming air of energy and importance, he departed in a taxi and bought a great many things for Brian's room; once when miraculously the bank and he agreed for a brief period upon his balance, he succumbed to a mathematical fit of uplift and conscience, dashed off a bewildering number of checks and left the overladen slate of his credit unmarked by even an I.O.U.

His brilliant air of calm and satisfaction thereafter was distinctly noticeable.
On the whole he was much too happy to be lonely or introspective.
Brian's absence and his splendid, sacrificial freak of service, had been the price of Joan's content and the welfare of her brother.
Whitaker, journalism and God's green world of spring he had chosen jealously to resent.

The thought of Donald West and a dim conviction of quarry hardships filled him with a new sense of solidarity in Brian and a passionate respect.

The current of his affection for his son was subtly altering.

It was no longer careless and frenzied and sentimental.