At supper, as ill luck would have it, Aunt Jean relieved her fatigue and anxiety by entering upon one of her old remonstrances with Erica. Raeburn was not sitting at the table; he was in an easy chair at the other side of the room, and possibly she forgot his presence. But he heard every word that passed, and at last started up with angry impatience.
“For goodness' sake, Jean, leave the child alone!” he said. “Is it not enough for me to be troubled with bitterness and dissension outside without having my home turned into an arguing shop?”
“Erica should have thought of that before she deserted her own party,” said Aunt Jean; “before, to quote Strauss, she had recourse to 'religious crutches.' It is she who has introduced the new element into the house.”
Erica's color rose, but she said nothing. Aunt Jean seemed rather baffled by her silence. Tom watched the little scene with a sort of philosophic interest. Raeburn, conscious of having spoken sharply to his sister and fearing to lose his temper again, paced the room silently. Finally he went off to his study, leaving them to the unpleasant consciousness that he had been driven out of his own dining room. But when he had gone, the quarrel was forgotten altogether; they forgot differences of creed in a great mutual anxiety. Raeburn's manner had been so unnatural, he had been so unlike himself, that in their trouble about it they entirely passed over the original cause of his anger. Aunt Jean was as much relieved as any one when before long he opened his door and called for Erica.
“I have lost my address book,” he said; “have you seen it about?”
She began to search for it, fully aware that he had given her something to do for him just out of loving consideration, and with the hope that it would take the sting from her aunt's hard words. When she brought him the book, he took her face between both his hands, looked at her steadily for a minute, and then kissed her.
“All right, little son Eric,” he said, with a sigh. “We understand each other.”
But she went upstairs feeling miserable about him, and an hour or two later, when all the house was silent, her feeling of coming trouble grew so much that at length she yielded to one of those strange, blind impulses which come to some people and crept noiselessly out on to the dark landing. At first all seemed to her perfectly still and perfectly dark; but, looking down the narrow well of the staircase, she could see far below her a streak of light falling across the tiles in the passage. She knew that it must come from beneath the door of the study, and it meant that her father was still at work. He had owned to having a bad headache, and had promised not to be late. It was perplexing. She stole down the next flight of stairs and listened at Tom's door; then, finding that he was still about, knocked softly. Tom, with his feet on the mantel piece, was solacing himself with a pipe and a novel; he started up, however, as she came in.
“What's the matter?” he asked, “is any one ill?”
“I don't know,” said Erica, shivering a little. “I came to know whether father had much to do tonight; did he tell you?”