serious, insistent.

The tangible facts, the letters and memoranda, before him, retreated
and came back to his consciousness. Tobacco worms had been boring
through his cigars, and destroyed a third of the box. Helena passed,
affecting a grievance out of any proportion to its cause in him.
Outside, the country was flooded with a deceptive golden radiance; and
he remembered, suddenly, that Alice Lucian had told him to bring Fanny
to the Club and a tea that afternoon, which she was giving for Mina
Raff. He repeated this to his wife, in a conciliatory regret at his
forgetfulness; and she replied that if he cared to go she would come
over later for him in the car. Lee, standing at a window, thought he
wouldn't; but, adding that Peyton would be there, he decided that, in
view of the possible developments, his presence might be wise.

* * * * *

The early gloom gathered familiarly in the long main room of the
clubhouse; the fire cast out fanwise and undependable flickering light
upon the relaxed figures; it shone on tea cups, sparkled in rich
translucent preserves, and glimmered through a glass sugar bowl. It was
all, practically, Lee Randon reflected, as it had been before and would
be again. How few things, out of a worldful, the ordinary individual
saw, saw--that was--to comprehend, to experience: a limited number of
interiors, certain roads and streets, fields and views. He made his way
through life blinded to the customary and unaware of the strange;
summer was hot and winter, usually, cold; the spring became green under
rain; winds blew and the leaves fell in fall--of how much more was he
conscious?