He was not reading and his thoughts were the same old thoughts. At
length on the quiet air, coming nearer, were heard the easy roll of
wheels and the slow measured step of carriage horses. The sound
caught his ear and he listened with quick eagerness. Then he rose
trembling and waited. The carriage had stopped at the door; a
moment later there was a soft low knock on the lintel and Mrs.
Meredith entered. He met her but she said: "May I go in there?"
and entered the private office.
She brought with her such grace and sweetness of full womanly years
that as she seated herself opposite him and lifted her veil away
from the purity of her face, it was like the revelation of a shrine
and the office became as a place of worship. She lifted the veil
from the dignity and seclusion of her life. She did not speak at
once but looked about her. Many years had passed since she had
entered that office, for it had long ago seemed best to each of
them that they should never meet. He had gone back to his seat at
the desk with the opened books lying about him as though he had
been searching one after another for the lost fountain of youth.
He sat there looking at her, his white hair falling over his
leonine head and neck, over his clear mournful eyes. The sweetness
of his face, the kindness of it, the shy, embarrassed, almost
guilty look on it from the old pain of being misunderstood--the
terrible pathos of it all, she saw these; but whatever her
emotions, she was not a woman to betray them at such a moment, in
such a place.
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