Hugh slept late the next morning, and instead of being the first down to breakfast was the last. He had done very well on his business trip to Chicago, however, and felt that he could afford to sleep as long as he liked. He had got to bed very late. This was not because Joan had kept him up. She had not, or had done so only indirectly. He had merely driven to Holly with her, a drive of less than ten minutes, and immediately on arrival set out on his walk home. That is, he had started off in the direction of Wild Acres, but when he came to the entrance of the avenue he found in himself no desire and, in fact, a repugnance both for dancing and sleeping. So, overcoatless, hatless and in only thin patent-leather pumps, he had tramped off for miles up the Hudson and back. It had been a simple state of misery that sent him off on the walk. But it was not Joan’s fault. Neither from his point of view nor hers. She had been rather unusually nice to him, in fact. The brief minutes alone with her in her car had begun with silence, but a silence palpitant with potentialities. There had been many such silences between them before, scattered sparsely but vividly through the past fifteen years. Out of one of them, some day, salvation might come. Joan might say, “I love you enough to marry you, my dear. At last I am sure of it.” For it was these silences that kept Hugh going, and nourished hope. He sat, leaning a little forward, watching the road ahead over Amos’ shoulder through the glass which separated them from the driver’s seat. And Joan, in her corner, her head tilted back, watched him through the silent few minutes that swept them down the wood road—which was all their avenue amounted to really—to the wide Post Road. There, on the highway, by the infrequent lights, she contemplated his clear-cut profile. But she wanted to see his eyes. She knew that they must be clouded with miserable hunger, but she had a desire to see, to be sure once again. Suddenly, the want conquered her whim of displeasure with him. She drew out of her corner, came nearer, and thrusting an arm through his elbow found his hand, and their palms met in a slow pressure. She broke the silence, hardly knowing that she spoke. “Kiss me, Hugh. Kiss me—”