"Will you come in?" asked the Colonel nervously of his guest.
"I'll stay here, thank you. Don't let me keep you, sir."
"Thanks. I think I will fix up."
Mather smiled scornfully at the relief the Colonel showed. Alone, he leaned against a pillar and looked out over the bay. So this was what he had come to learn! And being here, he must stay and put the matter through.
It was a miserable meal. Judith was furious with her father; Beth was appalled at the length to which matters appeared to have gone. Mather and the Colonel struggled manfully, and spoke of matters in the business world. The Colonel inclined toward the subject of stocks.
"Consolidated," he suggested. "Don't you think it a good investment?"
"I am leaving silver alone," responded Mather. "I consider all those stocks very unsafe just now, sir."
So with that radical difference of opinion between them, which really concerned the Colonel more than he would show, conversation languished even between the gentlemen. Out upon the piazza, after dinner, matters went more smoothly, but Mather concluded that it was wiser to "eat and run" than to stay where constraint hung in the air like a fog. So, pleading the habit of early sleep, he took his leave.
Then Judith, fearing that he had been suffering, roused herself. "I will go with you to the gate," she said, as he offered his hand for good-by. They left the piazza together, but Beth, catching his eye to signal satisfaction, saw him shake his head. Judith's condescension could no longer thrill him. Beth felt that his attitude, for one who was so concerned, was strangely like that of an observer.
And Judith felt it, too. He had passed through the stage of eager homage, a favour could no longer enrapture him; she wondered if he had even noticed the incident of the house-plans—whether, after all, he had been hurt, so steadily he had borne himself. When they were alone together, walking toward the gate, he turned to her a gaze almost quizzical.