Page:Thunder on the Left (1925).djvu/99

 cheek. This was too insanely comic: grunting under a bed on a hot electrical afternoon. He could see Phyl's feet standing motionless by the window. How lovely she was, how he wanted her, wanted to slough away all these senseless tensions and stupidities. . . . She was always right because she merely acted on instinct; he, usually wrong, because he tried to think things out and act reasonably. . . if she knew how heroic he really was, would she understand? He must get her to understand before it was too late. For this—this crisis that was hanging over them, was his deliberately desired trial of strength. And now, if they weren't careful, they would fritter away all their stamina in preliminary scuffle and nonsense; and when the moment came. . . soon, appallingly soon. . . there would be no vitality left to meet it.

He was terrified. He had planned all this, grimly; now things were moving too fast for him. A long soft murmur of thunder jarred across the sky. Would the storm pass over without breaking? No, by God, it must break, if they were ever to find peace. He must send up a kite, like old Ben Franklin (that first of modern advertising men) to bring down a sample of lightning. He must find out whether lightning was the kind of