How could she? Did she not know, had she not been told ever since she could remember, that the most terrible thing that a girl could do was to smile at a stranger? But he was not a stranger. She knew everything about him. She knew, although she had never heard him speak, just what the tone of his voice would be, rough, a little Scotch, and north country mixed ... not many words; he would be shy and would stammer a little. At the end of the second movement she smiled again. He smiled back and raised his eyebrows in a laughing question.
At the end of the symphony the air crackled with applause. The violinist returned again and again, bowing. He seemed so small, and his magnificent evening dress did not suit him. Evening dress, did not suit Simon either. The applause died away. The orchestra disappeared through the back of the hall.
"So hot," said Aunt Comstock, whom, until now, Lucy had utterly forgotten. "A breath of air outside...."
They went into the passage. People were walking up and down. They halted beside a swaying door. Mrs. Comstock stood there, her purple bosom heaving up and down. "No air.... Can't think why they don't...."
Her fine eyes flashed. She had seen Mrs. Norris. Are not those things arranged by God? Mrs. Norris, whom she had not seen for so many months. Are not these things arranged by God? Lucy's friend was at her elbow. He was as she had known that he would be; kind-eyed, clumsy perhaps, his voice rough and hesitating.... He was alone. He stood turned a little away from her, and she, as though she had been practising these arts all her life, looked at the pea-green Mrs. Norris, and the pearls that danced on her bony neck. The voices crept towards one another. No one would have known that Lucy's mouth moved at all.
"Can't we get away somewhere?"
"I'm with my aunt."
"I must see you."
"Yes."
"I must."