"Oh, hallo—Robert." She corrected herself severely, and held the door wide open. "Dr. Stonehouse—to be sure. Francey's upstairs."
She led the way. It was almost as though she had been expecting him. At any rate, she was not surprised at all. But half-way up the stairs she glanced back over her shoulder.
"I don't usually open the door. I'm her secretary. And a damn good one too. Rather a jest, eh, what?"
"Rather," he said.
And it was really the same room—a fire burning and the faun dancing in the midst of its moving shadows. There was a faint, warm scent of cigarette smoke and a solemn pile of books beside her deep chair. It wouldn't be like Francey to rest under her laurels.
She held both his hands in hers. She wore a loose, golden-brown wrapper such as she had always worn when she had been working hard. She had changed very little and a great deal. If something of the whimsical mysteriousness of her youth had faded she had broadened and deepened into a woman warm and generous as the earth. Her thick hair swept back from her face with the old wind-blown look, and her eyes were candid and steadfast as they had ever been. But some sort of mist had been brushed away from them so that they saw more clearly and profoundly. He thought: "She has seen a great many people suffer. She doesn't go away so often into herself."
He had tried hard, over and over again, to imagine their meeting, but he had never imagined that it would be so simple or that she would say to him, as though the eight years had not happened:
"Why didn't you tell me about Christine, Robert?"
He said:
"It wouldn't have made any difference."