Page:Lost Ecstasy (1927).pdf/48

 "Now look at that wheat," Jake would say, "if that doesn't grade A. one, I don't know what—will."

Henry would labor on, not paying any particular attention, pouring sweat and breathing in great gasps, and finally he would throw down the fork and join Herbert, who did not want an appetite—or anything else very much those days—in the shade behind the straw stack.

"Do you good, young man, to use your muscles."

"I get all I need on a horse," Herbert would say, and resume his endless questioning of a sky that offered him a sun-stroke, but no answer.

Then Henry would light a cigar and perhaps drop asleep. Once or twice he almost fired the straw stack.

Yes, Henry was certainly enjoying himself. He could put a hand inside the waist-band of his trousers, a thing he had not done for fifteen years, and if any one had told him that these were indeed his golden days, never to be repeated, he would have laughed at them. He had even ceased to dress for dinner, a rite which he had maintained was a matter of self-respect, although Bessie had always said that what he meant was respect for his dinner. In the late afternoons, slightly sun-burned and more than a little stiff, he would mix a moderate highball for Herbert and a stronger one for himself, and listen for the dinner gong. And at nine-thirty he would put down his book or the Ursula paper and rise, yawning.

"Good night, Katherine."

"Good night, Henry. Don't forget to open your window."

They had not shared the same room for years.

Herbert did not dare to pierce the wall of solid contentment with which Henry had surrounded himself. Nor was Katherine more accessible. She went through her days, neat, subservient, reserved; made her shy calls, gathered a few flowers for her tea table, entertained her visitors, and looked rather yearningly, when she was alone, at the mountains. Old Dunham had advised her not to ride.

She never tired of the mountains, where little narrow trails wound up and over into the sunset, and sometimes she thought of old Lucius, who had ridden this country so long