f his manager was
unable to change, develop, with the changing times he would find
another, more scientific.

Outside the early twilight made more grey the dingy sheds and buildings,
the heaped slag; the long brick rectangle of the rolling mill, with its
triple imposed, ventilated roof and the high, smoking stacks of the
puddling furnaces, rising four from either length, gave out an
undiminished, deafening uproar, the clamour of the bars falling out from
the rollers, the spatter of hammers and dull dragging of heavy weights.
The engine of the nail works rent all other sound with an unaccustomed,
harsh blast.... Jasper Penny was conscious of a deep, involuntary
relief when he reached the comparative tranquillity, the secession of
vexatious problems, accomplished by Myrtle Forge.

XIV

There was, as always, an elaborate, steaming supper, with his mother, in
a pelisse of black silk ruching, and Amity Merken at their places. He
noted that an empty chair had been put, as customary, at the opposite
end of the table, and with a trace of impatience ordered its removal. He
wondered momentarily at his petty act; and then his thoughts returned to
Susan Brundon. Jasper Penny saw her blue gaze lifted to his face, the
hesitating smile; he felt again the pervading influence of her delicate
yet essentially unshrinking spirit. She would possess an enormous
steadfastness of purpose, he decided; a potentiality of immovable
self-sacrifice. Yet she was the gentlest person alive. An unusual and
resplendent combination of traits, rare possibilities.

She had told him that she seldom went about--her school absorbed her,
and her eyes needed care, rest. He must ask Stephen Jannan further about
her. They were sitting, Jasper Penny, his mother and her sister, in the
parlour; a large, square chamber hung with dark maroon paper and long,
many tasselled and corniced window curtains in sombre green plush. A
white wedgewood mantel with ornaments in olive and blue, above a
brass-fretted closed stove, supported a high mirror, against which were
ranged a pair of tall astral lamps shining in green and red spars of
light through their pendants, a French clock--a crystal ball in a
miniature Ionic pavilion of gilt--and artificial bouquets of coloured
wax under glass domes. A thick carpet of purplish black velvet pile
covered the floor from wall to wall; stiff Adam chairs and settee with
wheelbacks of black and gold were upholstered in dusky ruby a