A Clock And The Wind

Jack Havig and Leonce visit Robert Anderson for the last time. Leonce says that they might raise their children on a New Earth or wander the universe till they die. Then:

"'That'd be enough.'
"Silence fell. The clock on my mantel ticked aloud and the wind outside flowed past like a river."
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), XVI, p. 171.

The silence is of speech, not of sound. The clock ticks. The wind blows/flows. The clock measures time. The wind often seems to comment in Anderson's works. This wind flows past and is compared to a river, which is a frequent metaphor for time. The clock is precise whereas the wind is unpredictable but are clocks clouds? See here. Chaos underlies order in Anderson's Time Patrol series although perhaps the unchanging timeline of There Will Be Time is more orderly?

This passage leaves us with the contrast between a ticking clock and a flowing river before the doorbell peals and the trick-or-treaters arrive, a return to normality in the form of children who can have no conception of what has just been discussed in Dr. Anderson's house.