The negotiations were soon concluded; and at the time of the beginning of our story the two women were daily expected.
A strange feverishness of desire to have them arrive possessed Stephen's mind.

He longed for it, and yet he dreaded it.

He liked the stillness of the house; he felt a sense of ownership of the whole of it: both of these satisfactions were to be interfered with now.

But he had a singular consciousness that some new element was coming into his life.

He did not define this; he hardly recognized it in its full extent; but if a bystander could have looked into his mind, following the course of his reverie distinctly, as an unbiassed outsider might, he would have said, "Stephen, man, what is this?
What are these two women to you, that your imagination is taking these wild and superfluous leaps into their history ?" There was hardly a possible speculation as to their past history, as to their looks, as to their future life under his roof, that Stephen did not indulge in, as he stood leaning with his folded arms on the gate, in the gray November twilight, where we first found him.