'Come in,' said Mr. Van Torp, withdrawing into the entry to make way.
She entered and went on directly to the sitting-room, while he shut the outer door. Then he followed her, and shut the second door behind him. She was standing before the fire spreading her gloved hands to the blaze, as if she were cold. The gloves were white, and they fitted very perfectly. As he came near, she turned and held out one hand.
'All right?' he inquired, shaking it heartily, as if it had been a man's.
'Yes--all right,' it said, as if nothing could ever be wrong with its possessor. 'But you?' it asked directly afterwards, in a tone of sympathetic anxiety.
'I? Oh--well--' Mr. Van Torp's incomplete answer might have meant anything, except that he too was 'all right.'
'Yes,' said the lady gravely. 'I read the telegram the next day. Did you get my cable? I did not think you would sail.'
'Yes, I got your cable. Thank you. Well--I did sail, you see. Take off your things. The water's boiling and we'll have tea in a minute.'
The lady undid the fastening at her throat so that the fur-lined cloak opened and slipped a little on her white shoulders. She held it in place with one hand, and with the other she carefully turned back the lace hood from her face, so as not to disarrange her hair. Mr. Van Torp was making tea, and he looked up at her over the teapot.
'I dressed for dinner,' she said, explaining.
'Well,' said Mr. Van Torp, looking at her, 'I should think you did!'
There was real admiration in his tone, though it was distinctly reluctant.
'I thought it would save half an hour and give us more time together,' said the lady simply.
She sat down in the shabby easy-chair, and as she did so the cloak slipped and lay about her waist, and she gathered one side of it over her knees. Her gown was of black velvet, without so much as a bit of lace, except at the sleeves, and the only ornament she wore was a short string of very perfect pearls clasped round her handsome young throat.
She was handsome, to say the least. If tired ghosts of departed barristers were haunting the dingy room in Hare Court that night, they must have blinked and quivered for sheer pleasure at what they saw, for Mr. Van Torp's visitor was a very fine creature to look at; and if ghosts can hear, they heard that her voice was sweet and low, like an evening breeze and flowing water in a garden, even in the Garden of Eden.