erged--Cleo, with her vitriolic notions and her pretentious scents!
This, then, was that mystic past against which her figure had stood
out!

Cleo and her mother returned a few minutes later, interrupting Mr.
Kettering's account of the many vexations that preyed on him--his
troubles with his men, the heavy expense of constantly renewing the
composition on his machine rollers, the idleness and wantonness of
the apprentice, the perpetual ordering of "sorts" from the
type-founder, the inconsiderateness of customers who kept his type
locked up, and the carelessness of everybody but himself in the
handling of his material.

"We've been getting along capitally, Mr. Druce and I," he broke off to
explain to the two women. "It's well on towards dinner-time, and the
children ought to be coming in soon."

Cleo seemed relieved to find that Morgan hadn't been bored. Her
mother, in whose strange, deep-cut features was suggested something of
the spirit of Cleo's face, was a brisk-looking, homely matron of
fifty.

"So Cleo is really married!" she repeated for the tenth time, her face
aglow with satisfaction. And her eyes rested wonderingly on Morgan
till he almost fancied he could hear her mental exclamation: "A real
live husband!"

Soon the other members of the family arrived, Mary and Alice and their
brother Mark, a young man of thirty, who looked hard-working and
reticent, and had large moustachios. They stopped almost on the
threshold as they perceived there were strangers in the parlour, then
they recognised their long-lost sister; but, embarrassed by the
presence of the strange gentleman, as well as by the startling fact of
her presence, they stood hesitant and rather shame-faced. Cleo smiled
at them encouragingly, whereupon her sisters came tripping over and
smothered her with kisses. Their expressions of love were so loud and
so flowery that Morgan began to recognise the family blood. When, a
moment later, he was introduced to them as Cleo's husband, their faces
became of a fiery red, as though there were something discreditable
in the fact of matrimony, and they exhibited a stiff shyness that was
almost stupid. The introduction completed, they stood looking at him,
giggling and giggling. But Mark now came forward with outstretched
hand, saying quietly: "I am glad to know you, sir."

"Let us go in to dinner, children," said Mr. Kettering.

They dined in the back room on the same floor, for the ground floor
and the bas