"Did Wilfred come?" she asked.
Her brother nodded. "Yes, but I told him you weren't in, and he went off in a bit of a gloom."
They had reached the gate of No. 17 by now, and the house seemed to Norah unreasonably hushed for this hour of the evening. Beyond the railway line the sky was lit up with the glare of the Exhibition, and the music that the military band was playing—it was a selection from "The Earl and the Girl"—was distinctly audible.
"Why should father object to my going out in the evening?" she asked, turning to her brother sharply. "He used to object to your smoking."
Roland removed from his mouth the large pipe and thought ponderously for a minute. It was quite true that only two years ago his father had objected to his smoking, and that with great difficulty he had been able to persuade him that bank clerks always smoked. Since that struggle his father had yielded him a grudging admission that he was grown up. The long years before he should be a bank manager rose like a huge array of black clouds before his vision, and though he disapproved of sisters acting on their own initiative, something in this autumnal night—perhaps it was only the sound of the distant band—created in him a sudden sympathy with any aspirations to freedom. Perhaps, if Norah had encouraged him at that moment, he would have stood up for her independence; but he felt that his company only irritated her and without a word he led the way up the steps, dimly aware that he and she had already set foot upon the diverging paths of their lives.
The dining-room had been cleared for action. Ordinarily at this hour the room was full of young people playing billiards on the convertible dining-table; but to-night the table had not been uncovered, the children had all gone to bed, and Mr. Caffyn was reading the Daily Telegraph, not as one might have supposed with enjoyment of the unusual peace, but, on the contrary, in a vague annoyance that his perusal of the leading article was not being interrupted by the butt-end of a cue or the chronicle of London Day by Day being punctuated by billiard-balls leaping into his lap. His patriarchal feelings had, in fact, been deeply wounded by his daughter's behavior, and though for the first time in months he had been able to put on his slippers without having to hold up a noisy game while they were being looked for, he was not at all grateful.
"I've had my supper," Norah informed him, brightly.
This really annoyed Mr. Caffyn extremely, for he had been looking forward to telling his daughter that her supper had been kept waiting until ten o'clock, when it had finally been removed in order to allow the servants to go to bed. At this moment Mrs. Caffyn, who had hurried down-stairs to the kitchen as soon as she heard Norah coming, arrived in the dining-room with a tray.
"She's had her supper," said Mr. Caffyn, indignantly.
"Oh, I was afraid—" his wife began.