The tea things were on a wagon beside the center table; there were a number of used cups and crumpled napkins, and whiskey glasses, in evidence, but Mrs. Grove was alone. She had been about to have them removed, she told him, when he rang. “No, I am not in a hurry; and it's such a disagreeable day you ought to have a highball.” She was in black, a dress that he found unbecoming, with a collar high about her throat and wide sleeves heavily embroidered in carmine. “You will hate that one,” she said of the chair he selected; “I can't think why chairs have to be so very uncomfortable--these either swallow you whole or, like a toboggan slide, drop you on the floor.” Lee drew up a tabourette for his glass and ash tray. The banal idea struck him that, although he had met Mrs. Grove only yesterday, he knew her well; rather he had a sense of ease, of the familiar, with her. The sole evidence she gave of an agreement in his feeling was that she almost totally neglected to talk. She smoked, absorbed in a frowning abstraction. A floor lamp behind them was lighted, and there was an illumination at the mantel, but the depths of the library were wrapped in obscurity: its sombreness had increased, the air was heavy with the dust of leather, a vague funereal oppressiveness. Lee's sense of familiarity increased, but his ease left him, driven away by the strength of a feeling not exactly of being at home but of returning to an old powerful influence. Mrs. Grove's head was in shadow. There was a stir at the door, and William Grove entered. He was, he told Lee civilly, glad that Adamson had been of use. “I walk whenever it's possible,” he proceeded; “but that way you wouldn't have reached Beaver Street yet. Nothing to drink, thanks, Savina, but a cigarette--” Lee Randon reached forward with the silver box and, inadvertently, he pressed into Mrs. Grove's knee. He heard a thin clatter, there was a minute hot splash on his hand, and he realized that she had dropped her spoon. She sat rigidly, half turned toward the light, with a face that shocked him: it was not merely pale, but white, drawn and harsh, and her eyes, losing every vestige of ordinary expression, stared at him in a set black intensity. “I'm sorry,” Lee Randon said mechanically, and he offered the cigarette box to the other man; but, internally, he was consumed with anger. The woman positively was a fool to mistake his awkwardness; he hadn't supposed that anyone could be so super-sensitive and suspicious; and it damaged his pride that, clearly, she should consider him capable of such a juvenile proceeding. Lee rose and excused himself stiffly, explaining that it was time for him to dress; and, in his room, telephoning Fanny, he determined to leave New York, the Groves, as early as possible in the morning.