He spent half an hour on each orphan, and the last one, he said, would have to come again.
“I’ll be bringing her along.”
He entered the appointment in a little book.
“I’ve no secretary, you see, Sister—can’t afford one yet!” and then he shook hands with her. “Good-bye.”
The feel of his hand was just what she’d imagined it’d be, gentle, and yet strong. There were funny little dark hairs all down the back of it and along the wrist. And although it was such a hot day, the palm of him was cool and dry.
Sister Dominic spoke to her, humbly, on the way home.
“Well, you’re a wonderful woman of the world, Sister Clara dear, getting us all safe there and back and talking to the man just as though it was the gardener at dear old Noisy-le-Grand. It won’t be so hard, next time, if Reverend Mother sends us again.”
Reverend Mother did send them again, with relays of orphans, and then Sister Clara alone, with old Mother Seraphina who spoke no English and whose cheap râtelier appeared to need endless adjustments.
And he was always kind, and he always smiled, with that screwing-up of his eyes, and talked to Sister Clara.
One day she said that she had toothache, and received Reverend Mother’s leave to make an appointment for herself after Mother Seraphina’s session. She had, for days, been devoured by an intense curiosity to know what it would feel like to have those hands hovering about one’s face. Once, he had had to put his arm right round the back of Mother Seraphina’s old head....