in the orchard; for that he was grateful. But
whether Adam Craig's attitude was one of trust or cold indifference, he
could not fathom. With Hughie and Hannah it was different. They loved
Joan and trusted him. That trust, he resolved, should not be futile. He
could justify it and he would. Joan, of course, was foredoomed to know
the delirium of the heart that had come to him that day beneath the
willow. Fate could not deny him requital. She never had. Equally, of
course, Joan's delirium, like his own, would not last. It could not.
The thought hurt his vanity a little.

It remained for him who had aroused it to linger here at the farm until
the fancy had run its course and she was quite herself! Even if, long
before, his own madness had waned. That was apt to happen, for he was
handicapped by an earlier start. Yes, he would linger. And he would be
scrupulous and honorable and kind. Joan was young and a woman. She
would nurse the shadows of her summer's idyl long after the idyl was
gone, and would mistake them for reality. There with his wider
experience and the sad memory of much ebb and now he could be helpful.

Kenny shivered and refused to dwell upon a phase of life that was like
autumn and sere and drifting leaves. It bothered him that the thought of
Hannah and Hughie had driven him to think it out. He liked best in heart
things to think back, not too far, and never forward.

"Kenny!" It was Joan's voice in the dusk.

Kenny forgot the sadness of his wisdom and foreboding. He forgot the
future. The thing to do always was to live in the present and now Joan's
voice, joyous and young, filled him with tenderness.

"Yes, Joan."

"The Gray Man of the Twilight's here. See, he's climbed up from the
valley and he's coming down the walk."

From the Gray Man's misty robes came the fragrance of syringa.

CHAPTER IX

ADAM CRAIG

Joan, Kenny called his torment of delight in days that were exquisite
intaglios. Adam Craig was a torment of another caliber. He claimed
the evenings of his guest.

Kenny knew too well for his own peace of mind the pitiful diversions of
the old man's day. It sapped his powers of resistance. In the morning
there was the doctor, a weary little man, untemperamental and
mercifully impervious to insult, who chugged up the lane in a car that
needed but one twist of the crank to release a great many clattering
things. All of them Kenny felt should be anchored more