Doctor Stein ... the revered Doctor Stein, whose interest in me at the laboratory has so warmed my heart, is coming down my steps. I am beyond surprise. Within this mothering darkness of my life words and customs and conventions move quite nimbly. So I greet Doctor Stein. I observe how his gentle face is a bit clumsied by his embarrassment:
“I just thought I’d drop in. I knew, though I’d said ‘Come,’ you were not coming to see me.”
“Doctor Stein, I didn’t dare.... I was afraid you’d forgotten that casual invitation.”
“Just so. So I came.”
“Won’t you come back, Doctor Stein?”
He followed me docilely, and took the chair I pointed out for him, sprawling a bit with his legs out, priming his pipe, and his eyes puzzled at the curtains over my book shelves.
“You cover your books, when you need to think deep?” he asked.
“This time I did. I never have before.”
He puffed hard at his pipe, clenching the bowl in his fist. A naïf discomfort faintly fretted his natural ease. His fine mouth moved, his gray thick brows lowered over his eyes, and in his eyes there was a twinkle as if this was a holiday for him, and he a bit rusty at it.
“Oh,” I exclaimed, as the man’s playful candor shone to me not at war but at one with his limpid mind. “Oh, I am so glad, so glad that you cared to drop in!”