He reached the office a few minutes ahead of the hour, but she was waiting for him. She rose as she saw him at the door and took an eager step forward. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes very bright, and her smile, as she held out her hand, had that same quality as her voice of the morning.
She was so far removed from usual things that she resorted to no conventional pleasantries after they had entered the doctor's inner office, and she waited for him to attend to a few little things before giving her his attention. He knew by the way her eyes followed him about that she was eager to begin, and while there was a little timidity about her it seemed just a timidity of manner, of things exterior, while back of that he felt the force of her poise.
He had never seen her so beautiful. She was wearing a brown velvet suit, a golden brown like some of the glints in her hair and some of the lights in her eyes. Her eyes, too, held that something which puzzled him. It was a windy day, and her hair was a little disarranged, which made her look very young, and her veil was thrown back from her face just right to make a frame for it. Why could not all women manage those big veils the way some women did, he wondered.
He sat down in the chair before his desk, and swung it around facing her.
Then he waited for her to speak.
That little timidity was upon her for the second, but she broke through it, seeming to shake it off with a little shake of her head. "Dr. Parkman," she said—her voice was low and well controlled—"I have come to you because I want you to help me."
He liked that. Very few people came out with the truth at the start that way.
"I wonder if you know," she went on, looking at him with a very sweet seriousness, "that Karl is very unhappy?"
His face showed that that was unexpected. "Why, yes," he assented, "I know that his heart has not been as philosophical as some of his words; but"—gently—"what can you expect?"
She did not answer that, but pondered something a minute. "Dr. Parkman," she began abruptly, "just why do you think it is Karl cannot go on with his work? I do not mean his lectures, but his own work in the laboratory, the research?"
Again he showed that she was surprising him. "Why surely you understand that. It is self-evident, is it not? He cannot do his laboratory work because he has lost his eyes."