nts us, all to come to dinner. I'm not a bit
surprised--not a bit--though I never counted on it--_never_!"

Thor also bent over her, standing before her, with his hand stretched
out to the back of her chair. "Is it about money, Mrs. Willoughby?"

But she was too far beyond coherence to explain. "He says he wants to
talk to us both after dinner--to Len and me. He's been going over the
accounts again and he finds--he finds--" But she beat with her high
heels on the floor and buried her face in her muff. "Oh, tell them,
Len!--for goodness' sake, tell them! They'll never believe it--not any
more than me."

But her emotion was too much for the big man's shattered nerves. As he
stood just within the doorway, looking with his snowy beard and bushy
white hair like some spectral, aureoled apostle, he began to cry.

CHAPTER XXXVII

Thor and Lois were glad of this interruption. They were glad of the new
and exciting topic. They were glad of the family dinner at the other
house, where they could be together and yet apart. Taking refuge from
each other in any society they could find, they kept close to Mrs.
Masterman when, after dinner, Thor's father retained his two old friends
in the dining-room for the promised explanations. Later in the evening
it was with an emotion like alarm that Lois heard that her parents had
gone home without waiting to bear her company. Secretly she began to
plan methods for stealing away alone. Her shyness of Thor was like
nothing she had known in the days of courtship and marriage, or during
the months in which they had been holding off from each other for
scrutiny and reflection.

It was a shyness which, when they were at last side by side in the
avenue, drove her to affect an over-elaboration of ease. She talked, not
merely because there were so many things to say, but also for the sake
of talking. She talked because he did not, because he towered above her
in the moonlight, dumb, mysterious, waiting. It was that sense of his
waiting that thrilled and terrified her most. It was a large waiting,
patient and deep, the waiting for something predestined and inevitable
that could take its time. It was like the waiting of the ocean for the
streams, of sleep for the day's activities, or of death for all. It
seemed to brood over her like the violet sky, and to quiver with
radiance as the crisp air quivered with the moonlight. It was wide and
restful and bracing. She was walking toward it, she wa