But Sara came downstairs affably enough.

‘Well, well! Mrs. Lindbeck, by golly!’

She didn’t frown.

‘Glad to see me, Sara?’

She was placid in her: ‘But of course, dear.’

‘Forgiven me for sneaking off like that?’

‘But you don’t need any forgiveness. You were quite right. We were all getting on your nerves, and your going away was good both for you and for us — I trust. Oh, I’ve settled down, and I hope I’ve acquired some sense, since I married.’

‘Like it?’

‘Immensely. Walter is the Rock of Gibraltar, and what’s more important, he’s amusing. I do think we’re a quite unusually rational and understanding pair . . . Oh, Inga!’ This, sharply and confidently as a section-gang boss, to the maid, lolloping about the adjacent dining-room with some notions about dusting. ‘Will you kindly be more quiet?’

‘Still keeping up your interior-decoration job?’

‘But naturally! . . . I mean: I’ve laid it aside just temporarily.’

‘Now give me the low-down on Howard. I haven’t seen him yet.’

Then did she lose her disciplinary serenity.

‘Father! I never want to see him again! After what we did to get him started! I can’t believe he’s my brother. He’s drunk all the time, and associating with that disgusting clodhopper, Cal Tillery. Walter and I did everything we could for him. We gave him all sorts of good advice, and Walter even offered to take him into the store, if he’d sign a promise not to drink. We’ve had to wash our hands of him. But cheer up, Father dear. You have ONE child who’s quit boiling and begun to set!’

‘Yes — yes — that’s fine — that certainly is — it’s fine to know you’re happy — certainly is fine — but I feel I ought to try my hand with Howard.’

‘Of course.’ She laughed then: ‘The only thing I can’t figure out is who’s who in your new version of the Fable of the Prodigal. You’re Prodigal Son, obviously, with Mother as Assistant Prodigal, and I’m the forgiving parents, and I’m afraid Howard is the swine, with Cal for husks, but who’s the fatted calf, and who’s the elder son that got sore?’

He was wincing at her complacent humour. Trying to be conversational, he interrupted:

‘Ever hear from this fellow Silga?’

‘Silga?’

‘Yes. Sure. You remember. Gene.’

‘Oh, HIM! That rat! I understand he was mixed up in some auto strike in the West and got arrested, and now he’s doing time. Serves him right.’

‘Now, Sara! I don’t think that’s nice! I never had any reason to love him, but you got to admire an enemy that’s got nerve.’

‘Do you? I wouldn’t know. But just as you like, my dear!’

With considerable awkwardness he got himself away from the assured and masterful Mrs. Lindbeck. He refused her invitation to stay at the house — his own house, from which he had fled, to which apparently he could never return — with the lying explanation that he had arranged to sleep on a couch at Howard’s.