Lee Randon secretly cherished, jealously guarded,
that restless, vital reaching for the indefinable perfection of his
hidden desire. For a flash it was almost perceptible in Anette, her
head half-buried in the darkness of the divan behind the rise and fall
of her breasts in a close sweater of Jaeger wool.
* * * * *
She stirred, smiled at him absently, and, with Peyton's assistance,
rose. The long room, unlighted except for the fire, was lost in
obscurity; the blackness against the window-panes was absolute.
Outside, however, Lee found a lingering glint of day; the snow had
stopped, but the wind had increased and was blowing over the open
expanse of the course in the high gaunt key of winter. His house,
across the road, showed regular cheerful rectangles of orange
illumination: he always returned to it with a feeling of relief and
pleasant anticipation, but he was very far from sharing Fanny's
passionate attachment to their home. Away--on past trips to the
Michigan iron ore fields and now on shorter journeys to eastern
financial centers--he never thought of it, he was absorbed by business.
But in that he wasn't alone, it was true of the majority of successful
men he knew over forty; they saw their wives, their homes, they thought
of their families, only in the intervals of their tyrannical
occupations. He, in reality, was rather better there than most, for he
occasionally stayed out at Eastlake to play golf; he was locally
interested, active, in the small town of Fanny's birth.
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