Charles stood there waiting, with his blood somehow strangely a-tingle and alert. It seemed to him as if this had all happened before, yet he could not remember what happened next. But it all seemed very natural. Then he heard her quick step on the stairs and she entered.
She smiled at him rather remotely but not without friendliness, and certainly without embarrassment.
"Thank you so much," she said. "I could not find him. Buz, dear, come along."
She stood in the doorway, with head already half-turned to leave the room again, just as in the hundred-year old portrait of her. Buz tattooed languidly with his tail.
"I'm afraid he is not very well," said Charles, with the sense of taking a plunge. "His nose is hot and dry."
"I'm afraid so. The dogs always think of this room as their sick-room if they don't feel what's called The Thing. Buz, come along."
Buz thought not.
"But won't you leave him here?" said Charles.
Joyce came a couple of steps into the room.
"Oh, I hardly like to," she said. "Won't he disturb you?"