In the midst of this last operation he heard lagging, soft little footsteps come into the bathroom behind him, and beyond his own lathered face in the glass he saw Stephen enter. Unconscious of observation, the little boy was gazing absently out of the window at the snow-covered branches of the maple tree. His father was so much surprised by the expression of that round baby face and so much interested in it that he stopped shaving, his razor in the air, peering at his little son through the glass darkly. Stephen was looking _wistful_! Yes, he was! Wistful and appealing! Wasn’t his lower lip quivering a little as though.... Stephen caught his father’s eye on him and started in surprise at being seen by somebody whose back was towards him. “Hello there, Stevie,” said his father in an inviting tone. “How’s the old man to-day?” Yes, Stephen’s lower lip _was_ quivering! He came closer now and stood looking up earnestly into the soapy face of his father. “Say, Father,” he began, “you know my Teddy-bear--you _know_ how....” From below came a clear, restrained voice stating dispassionately, “Lester, you have only twelve minutes before it’s time to leave the house.” And then rebukingly, “Stephen, you _must_n’t bother Father in the mornings when he has to hurry so. Either go back to bed this minute and keep warm or get dressed at once. You’ll take cold standing around in your pyjamas.” The tone was reasonable. The logic unanswerable. But unlike Henry, Stephen did not shrink to smaller proportions under the reason and the logic. With the first sound of his mother’s voice, his usual square-jawed, pugnacious little mask had dropped over his face. “I’ll get dwessed when I get a-good-a-weady!” he announced loudly and belligerently, refreshed by his night’s sleep and instantly ready to raise an issue and fight it out. “_Stephen!_” came from below in awful tones. Stephen sauntered away back into the bedroom with ostentatious leisureliness, his face black and scowling. Mother had once more stolen Teddy away from him during the night. Lester finished shaving in three or four swipes of his razor, put on his collar at top speed and tied his necktie as he ran downstairs, cursing the clock and all its works under his breath. Stephen had been on the point of _saying_ something to him, something human, Stephen who never asked a question or made an advance towards any one, Stephen who lived in a state of moral siege, making sorties from his stronghold only to harry the enemy. And the accursed matter of punctuality had once more frozen out a human relationship. He never had _time_ to know his children, to stalk and catch that exquisitely elusive bird-of-paradise, their confidence. Lester had long ago given up any hope of having time enough to do other things that seemed worth while, to read the books he liked, to meditate, to try to understand anything. But it did seem that in the matter of his own children....