'Then wait a moment.'
She slipped her arms into her dressing-gown and opened the door to him.
'It is nice and snug here,' he said, coming towards the fire—' nice and snug. But bitterly cold in the street; I could not keep warm, yet I walked at the rate of five miles an hour. I ran round Grosvenor Square, but the moment I stopped running I began to get cold again. I couldn't keep up the circulation anyhow.'
'Then sit down and warm yourself, father.'
'No thank you, I like standing up best. I'll just stop a minute. I hope I am not in the way; tell me if I am.'
'In the way, father; what do you mean?'
'Nothing, dear, I only thought. Well, I'll just get the cold out of my bones before I go up to my room. It is cold up there, I can tell you.'
The girl's keen, passionate eyes looking out of a grief-worn face, and a figure so thin that she looked tall, contrasted with the little fat man dressed in the yellow tweed suit buttoned across his rounding stomach. To see them together by the fire in the bedroom made a strange and moving picture. For the figures seemed united by mysterious analogies and the fragments of bread and cheese which the Major held in his old blued fingers were significant.
'I could hear them singing in the drawing-room,' he said, 'when I came in, so I stepped into the dining-room. One feels a bit hungry after walking. How did you like the play, dear?'
'Pretty well, father,' she answered, and she strove to check the tears which rose to her eyes.