a bath, had sat behind
the smoking coffee-urn, inquiring whether one or two lumps of sugar
would be enough; or a gladsome daughter who, in a sudden burst of
affection, had thrown her arms around her father's neck and kissed him
because she loved him, and because she wanted his day and her day
to begin that way:--if, I say, there had been all, or one-half, or
one-quarter of these things, the atmosphere of this sepulchral interior
might have been improved--but there wasn't.

There was a wife, of course, a woman two years older than Arthur
Breen--the relict of a Captain Barker, an army officer--who had spent
her early life in moving from one army post to another until she had
settled down in Washington, where Breen had married her, and where the
Scribe first met her. But this sharer of the fortunes of Breen preferred
her breakfast in bed, New York life having proved even more wearing than
military upheavals. And there was also a daughter, Miss Corinne Barker,
Captain and Mrs. Barker's only offspring, who had known nothing of army
posts, except as a child, but who had known everything of Washington
life from the time she was twelve until she was fifteen, and she was now
twenty; but that young woman, I regret to say, also breakfasted in bed,
where her maid had special instructions not to disturb her until my
lady's jewelled fingers touched a button within reach of her dainty
hand; whereupon another instalment of buttered rolls and coffee would be
served with such accessories of linen, porcelain and silver as befitted
the appetite and station of one so beautiful and so accomplished.

These conditions never ceased to depress Jack. Fresh from a life out
of doors, accustomed to an old-fashioned dining-room--the living room,
really, of the family who had cared for him since his father's death,
where not only the sun made free with the open doors and windows,
but the dogs and neighbors as well--the sober formality of this early
meal--all of his uncle's meals, for that matter--sent shivers down his
back that chilled him to the bone.

He had looked about him the first morning of his arrival, had noted the
heavy carved sideboard laden with the garish silver; had examined the
pictures lining the walls, separated from the dark background of leather
by heavy gold frames; had touched with his fingers the dial of the
solemn bronze clock, flanked by its equally solemn candelabra; had
peered between the steel andirons, bright as carving