CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
NOTHING in the life of man, Storrow was be- ginning to learn, was either absolute or perma- nent. Hope itself came to him shadowed with a great Perhaps, triumph arrived tinged with defeat, con- quest inextricably tangled up with subjugation. Even happiness, at its highest pitch, was not without an under- tone of regret, and love itself too often took on a colour- ing of pain, just as humour, uncouth and incongruous, could unexpectedly return to rob the deepest grief of its dignity.
Pliant as Storrow tried to leave himself during the ensuing days of readjustment, there were moods and moments when he was tempted to nurse the suspicion that the whole thing was a mockery, a studiously sus- tained pretence. Something, he felt, was wanting, even though that deficiency remained undefined. Yet against this feeling he fought both actively and stubbornly, know- ing that since he had made his bed he must lie in it. He must make the best of things. He no longer had any choice in the matter. He found himself thrust into a forlorn campaign of reconstruction in which he was des- perately resolved not to fail.
He 'was helped in this resolution by his newer attitude towards Torrie. In that attitude was a quiet tenderness, a tendency to be more deliberate in his movements, an autumnal wistfulness in his regard for her, a permuta- tion of midsummer passion into the cooler and thinner sunlight of November. This vague desire for tranquil-
lity, for that peace in which the currents of renewal flow
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