impression that, deep down in her tired psychology, she was trying to
listen. As for Aunt Paula--if his gaze wandered from her to Annette and
then back, he caught her stifling a yawn. Her final shot was to
interrupt his best story a hair's breadth ahead of the point. When he
said good-night, his manner--he flattered himself--betrayed nothing of
his sense of defeat. But no fellow pedestrian, observing the savage
vigor of his swift walk homeward, could have held any doubt as to his
state of mind.




V

THE LIGHT WAVERS


As Blake drove the runabout north through the fine autumn morning, he
perceived suddenly that his subconscious mind was playing him a trick.
He had started out to get light, air, easement of his soul among woods
and fields. And now, instead of turning into Central Park at Columbus
Circle, he was following Upper Broadway, where, in order to reach the
great out-of-doors, he must dodge trucks and cabs between miles of
hotels and apartment houses. In fact, he had been manoeuvering,
half-unconsciously, so that he might turn into the park at the
Eighty-Sixth Street entrance and so pass that most important of all
dwellings in Manhattan, the house where Annette Markham lived. Any
irritation which he had felt against her, after the unpleasant evening
before, was lost in his greater irritation with her aunt. Annette
appeared to him, now, as the prize, the reward, of a battle in which