"There's a time of life when one longs for peace."
Theresa jerked her head upwards. "Not for me!" she cried, and clasped her hands behind her back. Like a young horse, not yet broken, she believed herself unconquerable.
Nancy smiled. "Where's Grace? She has no class to-night."
"No, I expect she has gone to see someone." A little dart of anxiety pierced her, for she was a shrewed guesser, her eye was quick, and Grace's symptoms during the last weeks had been disturbing and familiar ones. She sighed.
"Are you tired, dear?"
"No, thank you."
"Then I wish you'd see what Father's doing. He looks so white to-night. Just give me those new books off the sideboard, first, dearie."
Theresa went upstairs. She felt a vague irritation against her family, and tasted life's staleness in her mouth. It brought nothing but a round of common tasks for her, dreary labour to her father, a strange darkness of energy to Bessie, and ill-health to her mother; to Uncle George, an emptiness he tried to fill with a harmonium and a hymnal, and to Grace, a breathlessness of dancing, smiling, dressing, flirting. All efforts and all persons seemed so separate, yet so united, and she could find no meaning in them beyond that. The thought wearied her, her body and mind felt old, and, remembering that it was long since she had dreamed of mountains, she realized the cause of her unrest—that romance and excitement were easily forfeited if she might see the hills in sleep. She paused on the landing and drew breath sharply, as though it were the mountain air she gathered.
She opened the study door, and saw her father bowed over his desk. He was writing, but he stopped and looked up to welcome her.
"Are you busy? Writing letters? Shall I go?"