The next three or four days passed slowly for those who waited. A spirit of uneasiness pervaded the household. Among the servants, from Jones down, there was dismay. It was not even remotely probable that Mrs Desmond would remain, and they confessed to a certain affection for her, strange as it may appear to those who know the traits of servants who have been well treated by those above them. Frederic flatly refused to meet the steamer when she docked. As if swayed by his decision, Dawes and Riggs likewise abandoned a plan to greet the returning master and his bride as they came down the gangplank. But for the almost peremptory counsel of Mrs Desmond, Brood's son would have absented himself from the house on the day of their arrival. Jones and a footman went to the pier with the chauffeur. It was half-past two in the afternoon when the automobile drew up in front of the house and the fur-coated footman nimbly hopped down and threw open the door. James Brood, a tall, distinguished-looking man of fifty, stepped out of the limousine. For an instant, before turning to assist his wife from the car, he allowed his keen eyes to sweep the windows on the lower floor. In one of them stood his son, holding the lace curtains apart and smiling a welcome that seemed sincere. He waved his hand to the man on the side-walk. Brood responded with a swift, almost perfunctory gesture, and then held out his hand to the woman who was descending. Frederic's intense gaze was fixed on the stranger who was coming into his life. At a word from Brood she glanced up at the window. The smile still lingered on the young man's lips, but his eyes were charged with an expression of acute wonder. She smiled, but he was scarcely aware of the fact. He watched them cross the side-walk and mount the steps. He had never looked upon a more beautiful creature in all his life. A kind of stupefaction held him motionless until he heard the door close behind them. In that brief interval a picture had been impressed upon his senses that was to last for ever. She was slightly above the medium height, slender and graceful even in the long, thick coat that enveloped her. She did not wear a veil. He had a swift but enduring glimpse of dark, lustrous eyes; of long lashes that drooped; of a curiously pallid, perfectly modelled face; of red lips and very white teeth; of jet-black hair parted above a broad, clear brow to curtain the temple and ear; of a firm, sensitive chin. Somehow he received the extraordinary impression that the slim, lithe body was never cold; that she expressed in some indefinable way the unvarying temperature of youth.