“I should say so!” Mr. Carroll replied, while Catherine quieted the boys and made them sit beside her with a book. “How was everything down there? Did you ride over that Garett Creek path you and I found once?”
“Yes,” said Stacey, “there and everywhere else.”
After the initial burst of cordiality they fell silent, finding little to say to each other. How estranged they were! Stacey thought. The murmur of the children’s voices and the subdued sound of Catherine’s words explaining a story were comforting—to Stacey certainly, to his father almost as certainly—filling in the emptiness.
Mr. Carroll called Jack to him—Jack seemed to be his favorite—and joked with the child much more naturally than he could joke with Stacey. As for Stacey, he talked with Catherine and Carter.
After a while Catherine announced to the boys that it was half-past five and they must go wash and get ready for dinner.
“Look here, Catherine!” remarked Mr. Carroll. “Do let them eat with us to-night.”
“Yes! Oh, yes, mother!” they cried in unison.
She shook her head. “No,” she said to them, “do as mother says,” and they went out slowly.
“No, please!” she replied to Mr. Carroll. “It’s awfully—good of you, but I’m sure it’s better this way.”
Mr. Carroll frowned. “Idea of Catherine’s,” he said, appealing to his son. “Boys must eat at six—an hour ahead of us. I’d like to have them at table with me. Can’t you do anything about it?”