For a moment the entire building was as silent as the oblong box. Then the door opened.
Sylvia Planter slipped in and closed the door.
George caught his breath, studying her as she hesitated, accustoming herself to the insufficient light. She wore a broad-brimmed hat that gave her the charm and the grace of a portrait by Gainsborough. When she recognized him, indeed, she seemed as permanently caught as a portrait.
"Miss Sylvia!" his mother worshipped.
"They told me I would find you here," Sylvia said, uncertainly. "I didn't know——"
She broke off, biting her lip. George strolled around the oblong box to the window, turning there with a slow bow. Even across that desolate, dead shell, the obstinate distaste and the challenge were lively in her glance.
"It was very kind of you to come," he said.
But he was sorry she had come. To see him in such surroundings was a stimulation of the ugly memories he had struggled to destroy. He read her instinct to hurt him now as she had hurt the impertinent man, Morton, who had lived in this house.
"When one of our people is in trouble——" she began, deliberately. "I thought I might be of some help to your mother."
Even over the feeling of security George had just tried to give her the old menace reached the uneasy woman.