As the ugliness of the room penetrated in detail, the red shaded lamp, the horsehair furniture, the onyx stand, gradually his anger at the Mitchells faded in wonder of Anne. Why had Anne come to live here; Anne, who hated ugly surroundings with physical passion? Was Anne so poor that she could find no better place, or had she changed? Did things like this no longer trouble Anne?
A door upstairs closed. Then the silence continued unbroken. Roger's nerves tightened. Why didn't Anne take him up to what was evidently her part of the house? He lit a cigarette and pulled deeply on it. The smell of the smoke drifted up to Anne. Her throat swelled and she braced her shoulders as she buttoned Rogie's rompers with trembling fingers.
Roger heard her coming and ground out the cigarette on the white mantelshelf. Anne was in the doorway, Rogie in her arms. Just as he had done with Anne, so now Rogie leaned away, frowning, before, with a plunge of delight, he almost threw himself from Anne's arms. Roger took him.
"Well, old chap, who is it? So you knew me, did you?"
Over the baby's head Roger smiled proudly at Anne, and Anne smiled back; for Rogie's hands were already clutching his father's hair as if, in this favorite game, he was making assurance doubly sure.
"You see, he did remember," Anne came nearer. "He really has a wonderful memory."
"I don't believe many his age would have remembered, do you?"
"No, I don't believe they would."
They laughed together. Then the memory of their intimacy, incarnate forever in Rogie, swept Anne, and she turned hastily away and sat down on the sofa. Still holding the child, Roger took the rocker.
Silence came between them. Each searched nervously for some spot in the present on which to meet. But the strangeness of seeing Anne and Rogie in these surroundings, his ignorance of all that had happened to them in the last months, wrapped Roger like a fog, through which he felt Anne receding from him.