Laura, in a long tea-gown lay back in the Madeira chair, her hands clasped behind her head, doing nothing apparently but looking out of the window. She was paler even than usual, and to Page’s mind seemed preoccupied, and in a certain indefinite way tense and hard. Page, as she had told Landry that morning, had remarked this tenseness, this rigidity on the part of her sister, of late. But today it was more pronounced than ever. Something surely was the matter with Laura. She seemed like one who had staked everything upon a hazard and, blind to all else, was keeping back emotion with all her strength, while she watched and waited for the issue. Page guessed that her sister’s trouble had to do with Jadwin’s complete absorption in business, but she preferred to hold her peace. By nature the young girl minded her own business, and Laura was not a woman who confided her troubles to anybody. Only once had Page presumed to meddle in her sister’s affairs, and the result had not encouraged a repetition of the intervention. Since the affair of the silver match box she had kept her distance.

Laura on this occasion declined to drink the tea Page had brought. She wanted nothing, she said; her head ached a little, she only wished to lie down and be quiet.