"We both enjoyed ourselves," she answered, watching him, something of a protective air about her. "I wish you had been with us, for that would have made it perfect. I was thinking that only this morning—as I walked across Hyde Park."
"How nice of you! I believe I, too, was thinking of you both, as I walked through Regent's Park." He smiled for the first time.
"It's very odd," she went on, "though you can explain it probably," she added, with a smile that met his own, increasing it, "or, at any rate, Dr. Devonham could—but I've seen you several times this morning already—in the last half-hour. I've seen you in other people in the street, I mean. Yet I wasn't thinking of you at the actual moment, it's two months since we've met, and I imagined you were abroad."
"Odd, yes," he said, half shyly, half curtly. "It's an experience many have, I believe."
She gazed up at him. "It's very natural, I think, when people like each other, Edward, and are in sympathy."
"Yet it happens with people who don't like each other too," he objected, and at the same moment was vexed that he had used the words.
Iraida Khilkoff laughed. He had the feeling that she read his thoughts as easily as if they were printed in red letters on his grey felt hat.
"There must be some bond between them, though," she remarked, "an emotion, I mean, whatever it may be—even hatred."
"Probably, Nayan," he agreed. "It's you now, not Devonham, that wants to explain things. I think I must take you into the Firm, you could take charge of the female patients with great success."
Whereupon she looked up at him with such a grave mothering expression that he was aware of her secret power, her central source of strength in dealing with men. Her innocence and truth were an atmosphere about her, protecting her as naturally and neatly as the clothes upon her body. She believed in men. He felt like a child beside her.