And--go out, please, I wish to dress." He went away, saying over his shoulders: "I only wanted to tell you that I'm not inclined to sit sucking my thumb if other men go, and you can say so to father, who has forbidden me to mention the subject to him again until I have his permission." But he went away to business that morning with his father, as usual; and when evening came the two men returned, anxious, dead tired, having passed most of the day standing in the dense throngs that choked every street around the bulletin boards of the newspaper offices.
Ailsa had not been out during the day, nor had Mrs.Craig, except for an hour's drive in the family coupe around the district where preliminary surveys for the new Prospect Park were being pushed.
They had driven for almost an hour in utter silence.

Her sister-in-law's hand lay clasped in hers, but both looked from the carriage windows without speaking, and the return from the drive found them strangely weary and inclined for the quiet of their own rooms.

But Celia Craig could not close her eyes even to feign sleep to herself.
When husband and son returned at evening, she asked nothing of the news from them, but her upturned face lingered a second or two longer as her husband kissed her, and she clung a little to Stephen, who was inclined to be brief with her.
Dinner was a miserable failure in that family, which usually had much to compare, much to impart, much badinage and laughter to distribute.

But the men were weary and uncommunicative; Estcourt Craig went to his club after dinner; Stephen, now possessing a latch-key, disappeared shortly afterward.
Paige and Marye did embroidery and gossipped together under the big crystal chandelier while their mother read aloud to them from "Great Expectations," which was running serially in _Harper's Weekly_.

Later she read in her prayer-book; later still, fully dressed, she lay across the bed in the alcove staring at the darkness and listening for the sound of her husband's latch-key in the front door, When it sounded, she sprang up and hastily dried her eyes.
"The children and Ailsa are all abed, Curt.