Page:Stringer - Wine of Life.djvu/320



HE quietly flowing days ran into weeks, and the weeks widened into months, and the green faded a little in leaf and lawn, and Summer grew old. Storrow, still deep in his work of reconstruction, watched the shortening of the days, watched them with that in- determinate regret which attaches to the passing of all earthly beauty. He watched them, too, with a small and slowly growing anxiety. Torrie could still be heard sing- ing now and then as she worked or idled about in the open sunlight. She still raced with Skookum, and talked interminably with the adoring old Abe, and remained discreetly silent on everything but the present. But a change was taking place. A dormant restlessness of spirit which still manifested itself only in oblique and accidental ways seemed to be creeping over her. This restlessness, the guardedly watchful Storrow was able to perceive, invariably became more marked just after their evening meal. That, he remembered, was the theatre hour, the hour which in her old life had imposed excep- tional movement and activity on his wife. A vestigial remnant of that old call seemed still to stir her blood, making it hard for her to remain quiet at the very hour when all the world about her seemed settling into slumber. Once, too, as she sat on the wide verandah, staring out over the slate-blue waters of the lake, she had startled him by jumping to her feet with an exclamation of angry protest.

" Those mourning-doves nearly drive me crazy," she protested. " They sound like a hearse-plume set to 310