On one side at least, the dinner party had been marked by a sort of ebullient reticence. Landis and Elsa had returned two days since from their honeymoon and were still feeling a little dignified and unique. Erect and formidable in her stiff chair, Mrs. Paul Bernard appraised the radiance of her niece and found it genuine. Her direct regard swung over upon her recently acquired nephew-in-law. His expression diffused the subdued glow of a vast inner content, whereat she smiled. Something drew her eyes down the table to her own husband. Her smile faded slowly. "And now," Bernard was saying to Landis, "you're coming back on the job at Headquarters to show up the old rough-and-ready methods of my day. Well, times change!" "I am, sir! But sarcasm eludes me tonight!" To their words Mrs. Bernard paid no heed, though she noted the veiled affection in her husband's voice. His eyes twinkled with amusement. He seemed more animated than usual, yet his change of mood threw into relief something of which she had been only subconsciously aware—a slightly patient droop to his shoulders and to his mouth. Perhaps her effort had been not to see it. Abruptly, with a novel pang of doubt, she recalled the concluding scene of the case which had brought them all together, a scene wherein she had practically bullied him into an autumnal marriage. Believing her guilty, he had led the hunt away from her and upon himself. She had tried to repay him by giving him her heart and then taking most capable charge of him and his bachelor ineptitudes. She had found him a worthy idol for the deeper, more tranquil devotion of her later years. Intuition had said that he loved her. If he were not content, then intuition had lied and she had taken rather than given.
