more. But she went on, sopping down the full paintbrush, drawing it along, half hypnotized. This sweet spring dusk, mysterious and stirring. She was aching with happiness, humming, like a plucked string.
The front gate clicked and Joe came up the path. He looked tired to-night, she thought; his shoulders were drooping.
"Too dark to work, Katie."
"I know it is. I was just stopping." She came and sat beside him on the porch steps. "You look tired, Joey."
He sighed. "I am. Spring fever, I guess—and then it's been one of those days when everything goes wrong—you know."
Kate sighed, too, tucking her hand under his arm. She had been so blissful, and now she was troubled, but she would rather be worrying with Joe than happy all by herself.
And she had been worried lately, sometimes with Joe, oftener because of him while he remained care free. If only he wouldn't drink so much! Of course she didn't want him to be like Mr. Cuthbert, spreading his hand over his wineglass at dinners, but as soon as he went into the house she knew he would go straight to the dining-room sideboard, to the whisky in the cut-glass decanter that had been Carrie Pyne's wedding present. He had grown to depend on it so. Not that he was ever drunk, except that awful night after the Mahogany Club dinner when she woke in the gray
