"This isn't an old frame house in Ohio, this is a gay little place in New York! You're going to love it, living here! And you're pretty much of a kid, my dear, to be criticizing like an old maid!" She had gone into Amy's room, and there her mood had quickly changed. For the curtains and the deep soft rug, the broad low dressing table with its drop-light shaded in chintz, the curious gold lacquered chair, the powder boxes, brushes, trays, the faint delicious perfume of the place; and back in the shadow, softly curtained, the low wide luxurious bed--had given to her the feeling that this room at least was personal. Here two people had really lived--a man and a woman. There had come into Ethel's brown eyes a mingling of confused delight and awkward admiration. And her sister, with a quick look and a smile, had lost the slightly ruffled expression her face had worn in the other rooms. She had regained her ascendancy. It had not been until Ethel was left in her own small room adjoining, that with an exclamation of remembrance and surprise she had stopped undressing, opened her door and listened in the silence. "How perfectly uncanny!" Frowning a moment, puzzled, her eye had gone to the only other room in the apartment, down at the end of the narrow hall. The door had been closed. She had stolen to it and listened, but at first she had not heard a sound. Then she had given a slight start, had knocked softly and asked, "May I come in?" A woman's voice with a hostile note had replied, "Yes, ma'am." She had entered. And a moment later, down on her knees before a grave little girl of two who sat at a tiny table soberly having her supper, Ethel had cried: "Oh, you adorable baby!" For a time she had tried to make friends with the child, but the voice of the nurse had soon cut in. And in the motherly Scotch face Ethel had detected again a feeling of hostility. "What for?" she had asked. And the answer had flashed into her mind. "She's angry because Amy hasn't been in to see Susette." And Ethel had frowned. "It's funny. If I had been away three days--" She had gone back to her own room and began slowly to take off her things. And a few minutes after that, she had heard a gruff kindly voice, a man's heavy tread and a glad little cry from Amy's room. "Joe has come home," she had told herself. "I wonder how he and I will get on." And she had met him a little later with no slight uneasiness. But this had been at once dispelled. Rather tall and full of figure, with thick curling hair and close-cut moustache, Joe Lanier at thirty-five still gave to his young sister-in-law the impression of kindly friendliness she had had from him some years before. There was nothing to be afraid of in Joe. But she had noticed the change in his face, the slightly tightened harassed expression. And she had thought: "You poor man. How hard you have been working."