"I don't know. I don't pretend to understand these sort of people. I suppose it's all right, either way." And this lady then withdrew from the conversation, leaving her husband half-nettled and half-apologetic, but quite unable to lay hold of any excuse for expressing either irritation or apology. Especially the latter, because why should he think confessions or apologies necessary? Perhaps nothing could throw more light on the way the heads of this household quarrelled--for domestic bliss has many forms--than the internal comment made by its eldest son when he returned by contract at half-past ten from supping with his friend Tommy Eldridge. What Master Bob said to himself, after a short wait for sounds of human voices, was: "_Row_ on, I expect. Pater and mater not talking!" He put his head in at the drawing-room door and made a statement. "I say. I'm not late." His father, who understood Master Bob down to the ground, attached the right meaning to "What are you?" which followed. He looked at his watch. "Ten-thirty-three," said he. "Three minutes late! Now go to bed, and leave the phonograph alone till to-morrow." "What!--not only just one, in the breakfast-room, with the door shut?" But even so conditioned, it is too late for phonographs, and Bob goes to his couch a sadder boy but as great a goose as ever. Before doing so, he has to give securities that he will not pound about overhead and wake his sisters; and to note that his pater is reading and sorting letters, and his mater has settled down to a book. You know what that means, especially when the book is bicolumnar, microtypical, and there's such a lot to read before it gets to where everyone says it's so improper. You read the first brisk spirt, till you get to the point at which the author's inventive power has flagged, and then you become strangely content to repose underneath that work, with your eyes closed and your hands peacefully folded over your foreground. But Bob was wrong. His mater had not settled down to her book in the true sense of the words, and Challis knew it by the speed at which the leaves turned. Marianne couldn't read at that rate, even without stopping to think of the meaning. And you must, sometimes. Besides, Challis had glanced at that book himself, and knew his wife would never understand local Americanisms and Indian dialects in Kamschatka. It was an interesting book, though, and Challis remembered how the first chapter began: "Midnight in Nootka Sound, and the blood still dripped monotonously from the shelf above, etc." He was just thinking could he safely venture on asking the reader why this first chapter was called "Hello!" when she put the book aside, and said briefly: "I'm going to bed." She had not spoken a word since Bob's incursion.