Once inside, Harran went to remonstrate with Osterman, who was still up.

Magnus had again retired.
The house had fallen quiet again.
As Presley crossed the dining-room on the way to his own apartment in the second story of the house, he paused for a moment, looking about him.

In the dull light of the lowered lamps, the redwood panelling of the room showed a dark crimson as though stained with blood.

On the massive slab of the dining table the half-emptied glasses and bottles stood about in the confusion in which they had been left, reflecting themselves deep into the polished wood; the glass doors of the case of stuffed birds was a subdued shimmer; the many-coloured Navajo blanket over the couch seemed a mere patch of brown.
Around the table the chairs in which the men had sat throughout the evening still ranged themselves in a semi-circle, vaguely suggestive of the conference of the past few hours, with all its possibilities of good and evil, its significance of a future big with portent.

The room was still.