Page:Stringer - Wine of Life.djvu/188



TORROW. in making the most of his new world with Torrie at his side, found a number of things to tax both his patience and his resolution. His studio, in the first place, betrayed symptoms of becoming embarrassingly overcrowded, once the Vibbard apartment had been cleared of his wife's belongings and the com- municating door had been duly locked and sealed. Tor- rie, too, had little of Storrow's sense of orderliness, and sustained application to that work with which he knew life could alone be justified became more and more diffi- cult. Yet he was unable to accuse Torrie of not doing her part. She had imposed on her friends, he grew to understand, a tacit conspiracy of absenteeism, and few indeed were the callers, outside of the irrepressible Pan- nie Atwill and the persistently loyal Hardy, who came to interrupt them.

It struck Storrow as odd, as the weeks slipped by, that the constraint existing between Torrie and Hardy, in- stead of diminishing, grew both more active and more ob- servable. He spoke of this one night, after coming home in time to witness Torrie bidding his friend from the Avenue a none too cordial farewell.

"Why don't you learn to like Hardy a little better?" he asked as Torrie proceeded to shake up the cocktails with which they now invariably preceded dinner.

Instead of answering that question Torrie turned and asked him another.

" What does the note of Ecclesiastes mean? " she half- indifferently inquired. 178