Places for two were laid at one end of the long table. Topper had suggested a small table in front of the fireplace for herself and Polly, but Gita was in no mood for compromise. She would sit where her grandmother had sat alone for so many years, save on the rare occasions when she had summoned the county to a formal and depressing function. Otherwise, no doubt, she had sat with her thoughts for company, her dimming vision peopling the long lines of chairs with ghosts. No compromise for her. Topper, too, was uncompromising. If he could not have a symmetrical small table he would not crowd his beloved silver at one end leaving a long expanse desolate. Candelabra and massive pieces were arranged with precision from end to end, and although he felt no inclination to set places for absent guests, and left all but two of the paneled chairs against the paneled walls, the remote curve patronized by this incomprehensible mistress had never the unseemly effect of being cluttered. Pelham felt that he had enough to endure without being asked to eat in a tomb. His mother talked sometimes of the past glories of her family, whose ancestral mansion (wooden, painted white, with green blinds) had been in Massachusetts, but he was thankful he was descended from the Dedhams on the petticoat side and had been brought up in a light and airy house in Atlantic City, however unhistoried and architecturally debased. And Gita, sitting in her grandmother’s high-backed wing-chair, looked less like a descendant than an ancestress. She had been brittle but vivacious during that half-hour in the garden, but here she looked as if the mantle of these infernal frowning Carterets had frozen the blood in her veins. For the moment she once more interested him as a case. He mentioned Eustace for the first time since he had made his perfunctory inquiry, after her visit. “I was very much worried for a time—afraid of infection. But Eustace has the constitution of an ox.” “Your good doctoring.” And her smile was grimly gracious. “Surgeons and nurses can do so much and no more. He may thank his sturdy Dutch ancestors and the healthy life he has led.” Silence. “I am afraid that shoulder will be permanently stiff,” he went on impatiently. “Hard on a writer.” “He can dictate, I suppose.” “He once told me he couldn’t endure the idea of anyone in the room with him when he wrote. Jealous, or something of the sort. Wanted to be alone with his characters. Authors are afflicted with temperament, you know.” “He could tap it out with one hand. I’ve noticed one generally manages to do what one has to do. If not one way then another.” “True. I’m glad he’d just finished his novel. By the time he is ready to begin another——” “It would be a good idea for him to travel for a time. You might suggest it. He’s been talking of a trip to South America. How soon will he be able to travel?”