At last George went, and the husband and wife were alone again.
He started to the door on a sudden impulse.
"I'll unpack and get those things," he said over his shoulder.
"Yes, do," she nodded, "before George goes to sleep. Your things are in the dressing-room, and he will be there."
"We've simply got to have another flat," he replied, with a pleasant sensation of the power to pay for it.
For a few minutes Marie Kerr sat quiet, staring at the fire. The home-coming, so stimulating to Osborn, had for her been inexpressibly stale. She was not thrilled; she was left cold as the November night outside. The new and pretty habits of her life were in peril of being broken, and her reluctance that it should be so was keen. She got up and mended the fire and patted the cushions absently. She could hear Osborn talking to his son, and Ann busy in the kitchen.
A man in the house was once more going to set the clock of life.
Before Osborn had found what he sought she went to her bedroom. The baby and Minna were sleeping side by side in their cots, a screen drawn round them to shade them from the light. Deep in the perfect slumber of childhood, they did not awake at her careful entry. She switched up the electric light over her dressing-table, and began to change her blouse and skirt for the black frock in which she dined. While she was standing thus, half dressed, Osborn came in.
She swung round upon him, hands raised in the act of smoothing her hair, and there was something in her face which made him halt. He looked at her uncertainly.
She could not have helped saying if she would: