"Your digestion ought to be all right. You deserted us at eleven o'clock."
"I? Oh yes; but other people—"
"Never know when to go home?"
"It's not the people who go home that I am concerned about, if you'll forgive my saying so. Ethan's in one of his moods this morning."
"What sort of mood?" asked Scherer, looking into the cloudless face of the young wife. "Not very grim, to judge from its effect on yours."
"Oh, very grim indeed." As Ethan came in she waved her hand and made a little mock bow. "You knew him yesterday as His Serene Transparency, to-day Don Inscrutable Furioso of Grim Tartary; smokes like a chimney, and won't say a word."
Ethan laughed and threw his cigarette into the fire.
"Morning!"
"Good-morning! I thought before I went to the office I'd come and have a little talk with you about that piece of property out by Ely's Farm."
Val glanced through the window.