I had seen fright in her face once before, the day when she came into the room at Hampstead with Jevons behind her and saw Reggie there. I said to myself, "She always was afraid of Reggie." But that, for the second that it lasted, was sheer fright. This was different. There was anguish in it; and it was only in her eyes.
And Jevons's entry, this time, was simultaneous. Little Jimmy came behind her, holding himself rather absurdly straight and breathing hard.
And there was Reggie Thesiger waiting for them, standing by the hearth between Norah and me.
Oh yes, India had changed him. Surely, I thought, it must be India that had made him so lean and stiff and hard. But he was handsomer even than he had been five years ago, and he looked taller, he was so formidably upright and well-built. (As a competitive exhibition Jimmy's straightness was pitiful. And yet, if his antagonist had been anybody but Reggie, it might have had a certain dignity.)
I wondered, "How is she going to greet him? Will she lower her flag and kiss him, or what?"
She sailed up to Norah first and kissed her. She shook hands with me. She smiled at me (I don't know how she managed it). Then she turned to Reggie.
She didn't lower her flag. She said, "Well, Reggie," as if they had met yesterday. There was no kissing or any anticipation of a kiss; they shook hands, not at arm's length, not in the least as if they had had a quarrel, but like well-bred people in the house of strangers. It was all beautifully done.
Then it was Jimmy's turn. Reggie looked at him as if he wasn't there.
If I could have run away with any decency I'd have run rather than face what came then. But the women—Heavens, how they stood to their guns!
Norah said, "Reggie, I think you know your brother-in-law?" with an air of stating a platitude rather than of recalling him to a courtesy he had forgotten.