The living-room held a glow of mellow light, but as Eben returned with the three brimming glasses, Conscience touched a button which darkened the wall sconces and left only the large lamp on the table, where she had placed her tray.
"Inasmuch as two members of this party are more or less gauzily appareled," she suggested, "it doesn't seem to be necessary to make an illumination of it."
Tollman, with a seeming of absent-mindedness set down his light burden on a small side table, somewhat remote, but it was with no want of certainty that he marked the relative positions of its contents. One glass was alone at the edge of the silver platter. Two others were closer together at the center.
Now he came over, empty-handed, and as he regarded the larger tray of food, he rubbed his palms appreciatively with a convincing relish.
"You have prepared a feast for the traveler on very short notice," he smilingly attested while inwardly and more grimly he added in apposition—"'a table in the presence of mine enemies!'"
His wife modestly disclaimed credit. "You are easy to please, Eben. There's only beef sandwiches and fruit and a little cake. Would you like me to make you some coffee?"
Eben raised his hand with a gesture of refusal. "No, indeed, I am more than satisfied—unless you want it yourself."
But she shook her head, "It would keep me awake. I haven't been sleeping well of late." This announcement of insomnia—twin sister to a troubled conscience, he thought—was a somewhat bold skirting of admission, but his words were reassuring.
"The Madeira is well timed then. A glass before bedtime should be soothing." Still standing, he bit into one of the beef sandwiches, and observed with an approach to the whimsy of gayety: "I've never been quite clear in my own mind as to what was meant by the stalled ox of scriptural fame and I've always subscribed to the text 'better a dinner of herbs where love is'—but I'm bound to say, it's very gratifying to have the stalled ox and the love as well."
For Farquaharson his air of celebration held an irony which accentuated his own exclusion and made participation difficult. He was the exile at the feast.