The billiard-room, on a suggestion from the architect, taken up with amusement by Laurence, had been made to resemble a European café. It had a low ceiling, red-plush benches round the panelled walls, long mirrors, and small tables in the corners; there was even a miniature bar.
Laurence, with his coat off, moved quickly round the green table, leaning half-way across it sometimes to make a difficult shot, managing his cue deftly and surely. The two younger boys followed his motions eagerly. John, who was playing his first real game, had a flush of excitement in his cheeks; his big blue eyes shone, he bit his lips nervously and his hands trembled; he laughed gaily when he made an awkward play. Timothy hung at his elbow, jeering and waiting anxiously for his turn. In the doorway lounged Jim maintaining a slightly supercilious attitude. Mary and Lavery were sitting on one of the plush benches; and the senior Carlin, standing at a little distance, contemplated the group round the table with interest. The men were smoking, the air was a little hazy. With the bright lights reflected in the mirrors, the click of the balls, quick movements and laughing comments of the players, the others watching, all seemed drawn together for the moment in an atmosphere of pleasure.
Laurence's face had brightened, his eyes smiled. When John had made his last play, a terrible fumble, and thrown down his cue angrily, he put his arm round the boy's shoulders and shook him with tender roughness.
"Be a good sport! You've got to lose before you win, you young monkey!"
John frowned, stamped his feet, and wrenched away, yet his eyes too smiled, and he hurried to fetch the chalk demanded by Timothy. Then when Timothy blundered John murmured a consoling word, little attended to, and when Timothy made a good stroke he applauded vigorously. Now and then he glanced happily at his mother, watching for her smile, or spoke to Jim, who only dropped his eyelids in answer; or went and stood beside his grandfather for a moment. He showed a quick consciousness of every one in the room, as though with infinitely delicate feelers touching them all. His physical motions were awkward, with the rapid growth of adolescence his arms and legs were somewhat out of control. He jostled Timothy at a critical point and received an impatient rebuff. Dashed by this, he stood apart for a while; and his face had its wistful, listening look, as if he sought among them all the human echo of some harmony heard far off.
After Timothy, it was Jim's turn. Jim had some pretensions to skill, but bore a smashing defeat with good grace, and complimented his father in an off-hand manly fashion, on which they shook hands with a cordiality rare between them. Jim as a rule irritated Laurence, either by obvious faults, laziness or extravagance, or else by silence and lack of response, a standing difference of temperament. But tonight Laurence looked at him affectionately, noting with pleasure his dark good looks, his lithe youth. Jim was almost a man—next year he would be going to college, if he could manage to pass the examinations.... So time passes....
Laurence was aware of a dark whirl of thoughts, half-formed, somewhere at the back of his mind; and of a weight pressing on the nape of his neck. For some time he had slept little and had been conscious of an increasing fatigue, something that piled up day by day, and made increasing effort necessary to get through each day's activity. He would have to work tonight. Downstairs he had the papers of an important case in which he had reserved decision.... And then there were a lot of business matters to be gone over with Lavery....
But he was reluctant to leave this bright room, to break up the family gathering. It was rare that they were all together like this; Mary very seldom came up to the billiard-room. The occasion seemed to him significant, and searching for the reason, he wondered if his father's strange presence had anything to do with it, or with his own unusual mood. Perhaps so. Perhaps it was this that had, as it seemed, thrown him back into the past, had curiously removed him to a distance so that this present scene had a kind of unreality.... It was like a scene on the stage which he was watching as it were through a reversed glass, so that the figures of the actors, his own included, appeared very tiny and as if at an immense distance. He watched himself going through the motions of the game, talking, laughing, and the others moving about. It seemed that some drama was moving to an obscure but deeply significant climax, but what was it all about?