“Don’t be catty, Margaret,” he said now, examining a Dresden ornament depicting four persons at a whist-table, the lace of the little ladies’ gowns and of the miniature fans they fluttered being picked out with almost incredible daintiness. “I say, surely your cousin never amassed this collection, did she?”
“No. It’s George’s. The only hobby he’s got apart from his test-tubes and things. Why?”
“I thought it didn’t seem to fit in very well with the synopsis you gave me of the lady’s character. Anyhow, that’s all to the good; I’ll congratulate George on his collection and he’ll love me like a brother. I’ve met these china-maniacs before and I think I know how to deal with them.”
“You’re perfectly right,” Margaret smiled. “It’s certainly the shortest cut to George’s heart.”
“And before George is much older he’s going to hear a few things about china,” Anthony was beginning with heavy sarcasm, when the opening of the drawing-room door cut him short.
Of the two people who entered the room the next moment, it is hard to say which presented the more striking figure. Miss Williamson, who preceded her employer, would have drawn attention in any company. She was a tall, angular woman, with high cheek-bones and close-cropped fair hair, and the pince-nez she wore seemed to add emphasis to the darting looks of her cold, slightly prominent blue eyes. Her clothes were neat to the point of severity and there was that air of brisk efficiency about her which is likely to reduce the ordinary man to a condition of tongue-tied uneasiness when he encounters it in a strange female, it clashes so persistently with all his ideas of what the word “feminine” ought to convey. Yet with it all the secretary was not one of those distressing creatures, a mannish woman; and though by no means beautiful, she was not in a way unhandsome. “A distinct personality here,” Roger told himself before his eyes had been resting longer than two seconds upon her.
Dr. Vane, who followed close on her heels, bore out the picture Margaret had already given—a great hulking man, six feet two inches tall at least, with an enormous black beard and a stern eye, yet with a gentleness and delicacy of movement which was in striking contrast with the rugged strength of his appearance; as he closed the door behind him, one could scarcely hear it meet the lintel, so restrained was his action.
Margaret jumped to her feet as the two entered.
“Oh, George, these are two friends of mine, Mr. Sheringham and Mr. Walton,” she said, not without confusion. “They called in to see me, not knowing about—about⸺”
“I am very glad for you to welcome your friends here, Margaret,” the doctor said with grave courteousness. “It is after all the very least I can do now that you are so kindly looking after things here for me.”