Page:Stringer - Wine of Life.djvu/67



TORROW had thought the thing out. He nursed no illusions as to the immediate course before him. He foresaw the inevitable. He knew that he and the Kirkner house were destined to part company, that he must move on to a less restricted environment, that he must have breathing-space about him, no matter what the cost. Yet he had deferred that impending decision, fof the simple reason that Charlotte Kirkner had openly asked him to do so.

She talked to him on the way home, after the luncheon at Sherry's. They were alone in the suede-upholstered landaulet, having dropped the older woman for a com- mittee-meeting at the Gregorian Club.

" You and mother are not going to agree," said the un- happy girl, with conviction.

" I'm sorry," acknowledged Storrow.

" I'm sorrier than you are, Owen," she found the frankness to confess. Then she went on, as though to screen that momentary surrender to candour. " What mother would like, of course, is to find you fitting in. She demands success, the kind of success you can recog- nize and label. She has no love for your lone-wolf kind of life. Yet that's the kind I feel sure you will want to lead."

" What makes you think that? "

" You'll always like to pick your own path, I know. You'll always prefer being one of the insurgents, of the non-con formers, just as I should, if I had the courage. But mother would rather see you swinging in with our 57