The details only remained to be settled.
For Malcourt, with all the contradictions in his character, all his cynicism, effrontery, ruthlessness, preferred to do things in a manner calculated to spare the prejudices of others; and if there was a way to accomplish a thing without hurting people, he usually took the trouble to do it in that way.

If not, he did it anyway.
And now, at last, he saw before him the beginning of that curious year for which he had so long waited; and, concerning the closing details of which, he had pondered so often with his dark, handsome head lowered and slightly turned, listening, always listening.
But nothing of this had he spoken of to his wife.

It was not necessary.
He had a year in which to live in a certain manner and do a certain thing; and it was going to amuse him to do it in a way which would harm nobody.
The year promised to be an interesting one, to judge from all signs.

For one item his sister, Lady Tressilvain, was impending from Paris--also his brother-in-law--complicating the humour of the visitation.
Malcourt's marriage to an heiress was the perfectly obvious incentive of the visit.

And when they wrote that they were coming to New York, it amused Malcourt exceedingly to invite them to Luckless Lake.