The mood sank into an inexplicable nostalgia; he dragged the back of a hand impatiently across his vision. His persistent indifference, the inhibition that held him in a contemptuous isolation, again possessed him, Howat, a black Penny. A last trace of his emotion, caught in the flood of his paramount disdain, vanished like a breath of warm mist. He entered the house and mounted to his room; the stairs creaked but that was the only sound audible within. His candles burned without their protecting glasses in smooth, unwavering flames. When they were extinguished the darkness flowed in and blotted out familiar objects, folded him in a cloak of invisibility, obliterated him in sleep. As he lost consciousness he heard the trip hammer dully beating out Penny iron, Penny gold; beating out, too, the Penny men ... Slag and metal and ruffled muslin, roman candles and stars. V There came to him in the counting house, the following afternoon, rumours and echoes of the day's happenings. David Forsythe had arrived after dinner, and there had been word from Mr. Winscombe; he would be obliged to return to Maryland, and trusted that Ludowika would not be an onerous charge. David was to take Myrtle and Caroline back with him to the city, for an exemplary Quaker party. "There's no good asking you," he told Howat, lounging in the door of the counting room. David was flushed, his sleeve coated with dust. "Caroline," he exclaimed, "is as strong as a forgeman; she upset me on the grass as quickly as you please, hooked her knee behind me, and there I was. She picked me up, too, and laughed at me," he stopped, lost in thought. "Myrtle's really beautiful," he said again; "Caroline's not a thing to look at, and yet, do you know, a--a man looks at her. She is wonderfully graceful." Howat gave Caroline the vigorous stamp of his brotherly approval. "She understands a lot, for a girl," he admitted. "Of course Myrtle's a particular peach, but I'd never go to her if a buckle--" he stopped abruptly as Myrtle appeared at David's side. "Isn't he industrious?" she said indifferently. "You'd never guess how father's at him. Have you heard, Howat--Mrs. Winscombe will be here perhaps a month. It's a wonder you haven't gone away, you are so frightfully annoyed by people. Last night you were with her over an hour on the lawn. I could see that father thought it queer; but I explained to him that court women never thought of little things like, well, husbands." Howat gazed at her coldly, for the first time conscious that he actually disliked Myrtle. He made up his mind, definitely, to assist Caroline as far as possible. She was absurd, criticizing Mrs. Winscombe. "Where," he demanded, "did you get all that about courts? And your sudden, tender interest in husbands? That's new, too. You're not thinking of one for yourself, are you? He'd never see you down in the morning."