I looked at Loft; he was grinning. So, I suppose, was I. "This is good, Loft."
"You may say that, sir!"
"Did she come alone?"
"No, sir. Her maid—a Frenchwoman, I think, sir—and a young lady. If she'd brought twenty, she'd have found the house all ready for them."
"I'm sure she would. Tell her I'll come up in half an hour."
Her coming transformed everything for me; it seemed to put life into the place, life into the big dull house on the hill, life into my little den, life into that summer's day. It was the breaking of a long frost, the awakening from a stupor. The coming that I had always believed in began to seem incredible only now, when it had happened; incredible it seemed that by just walking up the hill I could see Jenny again and hear her voice. Absence and silence had rendered her so distant to sight or sound, so intangible and remote. My last clear memory of her was still at Hatcham Ford—as she asked Fillingford for the loan of his carriage, and, with "God bless you, Austin," vanished into the night. A man can, I suppose, get on without anyone, if he must; but he cannot always make out how he has managed to do it.
I found her sitting in her old place in the big drawing-room; she wore—whether by purpose or not what was in effect slight mourning, a white summer frock with touches of black. Yes, her face was a little thinner, but it had not lost its serenity. She was less a girl, more a woman—but not a woman prematurely aged.
"Dear Austin!" she said, as I kissed the hand she held out to me. "You've waited a long while—here I am at last! You've become famous in the interval—yes, you have. I've seen your book, and I wish Leonard could have read it. He'd have liked it. But though you're famous, still you waited for me!"
"I don't think you expected me to do anything else."
She smiled at me. "Perhaps not. But, do you know, I'm afraid you've done something else than grow famous. Have you grown into an old bachelor? You look rather like it."