She was writing a note. When she had signed it with a firm hand, and blotted it, she handed it to me to read. It was a very brief note to Lord Porteous, breaking their engagement. “He won’t accept it,” I said. “You can be generous,” she replied. “However, it doesn’t matter. I accept it.” “These things are all untrue that people are saying about your father. It’s a kind of hysteria. The indictment, if that’s what you are thinking of, is preposterous. Nothing will come of it. There will be a sudden reaction in public feeling.” “I know,” she said. “That isn’t all.... I suppose you have come to take me home?” “But what else?” I asked. She shook her head. As we were leaving the studio she paused on the threshold to look back. I was watching her face. It expressed a premonition of farewell. Once before I had seen that look. When? Ah, yes. That night long ago when she told me the old house had been mortgaged. Then I understood. To her, and indeed to all the family, this crisis in Galt’s affairs meant another smash. The only difference between this time and others was that they would fall from a greater height, and probably for the last time. We drove home in a taxi. “How I loathe it!” she whispered as we were going in, saying it to herself. Natalie appeared. “You’re in for it,” she said to me. “Father wants to know who brought the doctor in.” “I was worried about him,” I said. “So is the doctor. But it’s no use. He can’t do a thing. Father sent him away in a hurry.” Gram’ma Galt came in for dinner. So we were five. Galt did not come down. Conversation was oblique and thin. One wondered what the servants were thinking, and wished the service were not so noiseless. If only they would rattle the plates, or break something, or sneeze, instead of moving about with that oiled and faultless precision. The tinkling of water in the fountain room was a silly, exasperating sound, and for minutes together the only sound there was. Mrs. Galt was off her form. She tried and failed. Nobody else tried at all.