He led her almost tenderly to her chair; and as soon as she was comfortably seated and supplied with rolls and bacon, resigned her contentedly to his wife and the butler.

His manner of gentle abstraction, which Gabriella attributed first to something he had just read in the newspaper, she presently discovered to be his habitual attitude toward all the world except Wall Street.

He ate his breakfast as if his attention were somewhere else; he spoke to his son and his daughter-in-law kindly, but as if he were not thinking about them; he treated his wife, whom he adored, as if he had not clearly perceived her.

In the profound abstraction in which he lived every impression appeared to have become blurred except the tremendous impression of whirling forces; every detail seemed to have been obscured except the gigantic details of "Business." His manner was perfectly well-bred, but it was the manner of a man who moves through life rehearsing a part of which he barely remembers the words.

From the first minute it was evident to Gabriella that her father-in-law adored his wife as an ideal, though he seemed scarcely aware of her as a person.