both their minds. 

 Presently their low-toned murmurings were interrupted by the appearance of Dixon, the butler, announcing lunch. 

 "Mrs. Price," he said, "will not be down—she has a headache." 

 Mrs. Janney rose, looking at the man. He had been in her service for years, was one of the first outward and visible signs of her growth in affluence. She was sure that he knew what had happened, but her face was unrevealing as a mask, as she said: 

 "See that she gets something. Will Mr. Price take his lunch upstairs?" 

 "No, Madam," returned the man quietly, "Mr. Price is coming down." 

 It was a ghastly meal—three of them eating sumptuous food, waited on by two men hardly less silent than they were. It wouldn't have been so unbearable if Bébita, Suzanne's daughter, had been there to lift the curse off it with her artless chatter, or Esther Maitland, the social secretary, who had acquired a habit of talking with Mr. Janney when the rest of the family were held in the dumbness of wrath. But Bébita was spending the morning with a little chum and Miss Maitland was lunching with a friend in the village. 

 Chapman Price, as if anxious to show how little he cared, ate everything that was passed, and prolonged the misery by second helpings. Mrs. Janney could have beaten him, she was so angry. Once she glanced at him and met his eyes, insolently defiant, and as full of hostility as her own. They were vital eyes, dark and bold, and were set in a handsome face. At the time of his marriage he had been known as "Beauty Price" and it was his good looks which had caught the capricious fancy of Suzanne. In the eight years since then they had suffered, the firmly modeled contours had grown thin and hard, the mouth had set in an ugly line, the brows had creased by a frown of sulky resentment. But he was still a noticeable figure, six feet, lean and agile, with a skin as brown as a nut and a crown of black hair brushed to a glossy smoothness. Many women continued to describe Chapman Price as "a perfect Adonis." 

 When they rose from the table he stood aside to let his parents-in-law pass out before him. They brushed by, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable and wanting to get away as quickly as their dignity would permit. They dreaded a last flare-up of his temper, notoriously violent and uncontrolled, one of the attributes that had made him so unacceptable. In the hall at the stair foot they half turned to him, swept him with cold looks and were 

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