She knew that Percy would like some excuse to escape into the country. Conny had no liking for suburban life, and with her husband's career at the critical point the real country was out of the question.
"I suppose Jack will have to go to boarding school another year," Percy said with a sigh.
He was not a strong man himself, though of solid build and barely thirty. He had that bloodless whiteness of skin so often found among young American men, which contrasted with his dark mustache, and after a long day's work like this his step dragged. He wore glasses over his blue eyes, and when he removed them the dark circles could be seen. Conny knew the limits of his strength and looked carefully to his physical exercise.
"You didn't get your squash this afternoon?"
When Percy was worried about anything, she immediately searched for a physical cause.
"No! I had to finish up things at the office so that I could get away to-night."
Then husband and wife went to their dinner, and Woodyard gave Conny a short-hand account of his doings, the people he had seen, what they had said, the events at the office. Conny required this account each day, either in the morning or in the evening. And Woodyard yielded quite unconsciously to his wife's strong will, to her singularly definite idea of "what is best." He admired her deeply, was grateful to her for that complete mastery of the detail of life which she had shown, aware that if it were not for the dominating personality of this woman he had somehow had the good fortune to marry, life would have been a smaller matter for him.
"Con," he said when they had gone back to the library for their coffee, "I am afraid this Commission is going to be ticklish business."
"Why?" she demanded alertly.
"There are some dreadful grafters on it,—I suspect that the chairman is a wolf. I suspect further that it has been arranged to whitewash certain rank deals."