"She'll be down presently--if you care to wait." This, partly because she hoped he would go, chiefly because he seemed in such a hurry.
"I'll wait a few minutes," said Craig in his sharp, irritating voice.
And he began to tour the room, glancing at pictures, at articles on the tables, mussing the lighter pieces of furniture about.

Mrs.Severence, pink-and-white, middle-aged, fattish and obviously futile, watched him with increasing nervousness.

He would surely break something; or, being by a window when the impulse to depart seized him, would leap through, taking sash, curtains and all with him.
"Perhaps we'd better go outdoors," suggested she.

She felt very helpless, as usual.

It was from her that Lucia inherited her laziness and her taste for that most indolent of all the dissipations, the reading of love stories.
"Outdoors ?" exploded Craig, wheeling on her, as if he had previously been unconscious of her presence.