“Is there anyone else in the waiting room?”
“No miss—nobody.”
Miriam went in briskly.... “Well? How is the decayed gentlewoman?” she said briskly from the doorway. She hardly looked. She had taken in the close-fitting bonnet and chin bow and the height-giving look of the long blue uniform cloak together with the general aspect of the heavily shaded afternoon room....
“Oh, she’s very well.”
Miss Dear had stood quite still in her place half way down the room between the sofa and the littered waiting room table. She made a small controlled movement with her right hand as Miriam approached. Miriam paused with her hand on a “Navy League,” absorbed in the low sweet even tone. She found herself standing reverently, pulled up a few inches from the dark figure. Suddenly she was alight with the radiance of an uncontrollable smile. Her downcast eyes were fixed upon a tall slender figure in a skimpy black dress, tendrils of fine gold hair dancing in the rough wind under a cornflower blue toque, a clear living rose-flush.... Something making one delicate figure more than the open width of the afternoon, the blue afternoon sea and sky. She looked up. The shy sweet flower pink face glowed more intensely under the cap of gold hair clasped flatly down by the blue velvet rim of the bonnet. The eyes, now like Weymouth Bay, now like Julia Doyle’s, now a clear expressionless blue, were fixed on hers; the hesitating face was breaking again into watchful speech. But there was no speech in the well-remembered outlines moulding the ominous cloak. Miriam flung out to stem the voice, rushing into phrases to open the way to the hall and the front door. Miss Dear stood smiling and laughing her little smothered obsequious laugh, just as she had done at Bognor, making one feel like a man.
“Well—I’m most frightfully busy,” wound up Miriam cheerfully turning to the door. “That’s London—isn’t it? One never has a minute.”
Miss Dear did not move. “I came to thank you for the concert tickets,” she said in the even thoughtful voice that dispersed one’s thoughts.
“Oh yes. Was it any good?”
“I enjoyed it immensely,” said Miss Dear gravely. “So did Sister North,” she added, shaking out the words in delicate laughter.
... I don’t know ‘Sister North.’ ... “Oh, good,” said Miriam opening the door.