hich means they had not engaged with her. The effect on Mabel may be inferred from the image of her as sitting "impassive and inscrutable . . . like one condemned, at the head of the table" (3). Small wonder that the mood is described in terms of "a silence of futility and irritation" (3).
Joe anticipates his marriage to the estate steward's daughter without joy. Fred, who is described as having an almost military bearing--"erect, clean-limbed, alert . . . and he carried himself with a well-tempered air of mastery" (2)--is nevertheless not master of "the situation of life." Thus the military may represent his best option. The point is that he does have an option, as far as the outward, public man is concerned. Whether he feels constrained by losing the inner freedom of self-employment is a different matter. In the opening paragraphs of the story all of the brothers are "frightened at the collapse of their lives, and the sense of disaster in which they were involved left them no inner freedom" (1).
Compared to Mabel, whose social options are starkly limited, Fred could do worse than opt for the military, where his attitude of "sang-froid" may serve him well and where he will bear the necessity of taking "orders" (4) well enough. Malcolm, meanwhile, as the youngest, is off tonight, on the 11:40, possibly to London, where, in the first full flush of youth, he may be able to construct a life with the confidence of the young.
Joe's response to the situation reveals the deliberation with which he approaches life. When he takes Malcolm to the station in the trap, Joe's body language is that it is as if he has "his tail between his legs" (4). That is the body language of one who looks forward to very little in life; on the other hand, Joe has already made a calculus about his father-in-law's providing a secure job to him, which suggests that he is trading one life of security for another. Indeed, the opening paragraph portrays Joe as "...