CONRAD NORMAN
bakery wagon; there were no riches in sight along that route; and while he traveled it he had to deliver bread to her back door and be treated as a hired man by her mother. And that was why he left every other occupation that he tried in Centerbrook. He lasted longest at the soda-fountain, because the Furnesses had not the American weaknesses for cold drinks and proprietary medicines. The apparent cheerfulness of his irresponsibility was a humorous Irish mask for his distaste for commercial drudgery and the growing unhappiness of his divided life. He flung out impatiently against a situation which only the most deadly application of industry could have cured.
When he tried working in New York he was away from her all day; she had now refused to meet him at night after the others were asleep, and he could not endure the deprivation of not seeing her. She must have discovered, by this time, that then love-affair was becoming a guilty madness. While he was with her he had all sorts of plans, the most impossible hopes, the wildest dreams, but—away from her—he could not fulfil them. She was like a drug that left him enervated instead of a stimulant to spur him on.
For a year at least a silent struggle had gone on between them; and then, apparently, she gave it up. He began drifting aimlessly, and she did not reproach him. He took it for granted that she was satisfied to wait for the realization of his vague
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