her dubious way at
his cigar. "Between you and me and the lamp-post, Jule," he said, with a
slow, whimsical drawl, "there isn't a fellow in the world that I wanted
to see less than I did him. But since he's here--why, we've got to make
the best of it."

After dinner, Thorpe suffered the youngsters to go up to the
drawing-room in the tacit understanding that he should probably not see
them again that night. He betook himself then once more to the library,
as it was called--the little, cozy, dark-panelled room off the hall,
where the owner of the house had left two locked bookcases, and where
Thorpe himself had installed a writing-desk and a diminutive safe for
his papers. The chief purpose of the small apartment, however, was
indicated by the two big, round, low-seated easy-chairs before the
hearth, and by the cigar boxes and spirit-stand and tumblers visible
behind the glass of the cabinet against the wall. Thorpe himself
called the room his "snuggery," and spent many hours there in slippered
comfort, smoking and gazing contentedly into the fire. Sometimes Julia
read to him, as he sat thus at his ease, but then he almost invariably
went to sleep.

Now, when he had poured out some whiskey and water and lit a cigar, the
lounging chairs somehow did not attract him. He moved about aimlessly in
the circumscribed space, his hands in his pockets, his burly shoulders
rounded, his face dulled and heavy as with a depression of doubt. The
sound of the piano upstairs came intermittently to his ears. Often he
ascended to the drawing-room to hear Julia play--and more often still,
with all the doors open, he enjoyed the mellowed murmur of her music
here at his ease in the big chair. But tonight he had no joy in the
noise. More than once, as he slouched restlessly round the room, the
notion of asking her to stop suggested itself, but he forbore to put it
into action. Once he busied himself for a time in kneeling before his
safe, and scrutinizing in detail the papers in one of the bundles it
contained.

At last--it was after ten o'clock, and the music above had ceased--the
welcome sounds of cab-wheels without, and then of the door-bell, came to
dispel his fidgeting suspense. On the instant he straightened himself,
and his face rearranged its expression. He fastened upon the door of the
room the controlled, calm glance of one who is easily confident about
what is to happen.

"Quaker-looking" was not an inapt phrase for the person wh