His eyes alone, grey and distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down, squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle.

The room reeked faintly of the eau-de-Cologne she was spraying.
"All right!" said Soames, "it's not a fire.

The Boers have declared war--that's all." Emily stopped her spraying.
"Oh!" was all she said, and looked at James.
Soames, too, looked at his father.

He was taking it differently from their expectation, as if some thought, strange to them, were working in him.
"H'm!" he muttered suddenly, "I shan't live to see the end of this." "Nonsense, James! It'll be over by Christmas." "What do you know about it ?" James answered her with asperity.

"It's a pretty mess at this time of night, too!" He lapsed into silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotised, waited for him to say: 'I can't tell--I don't know; I knew how it would be!' But he did not.