While the instructor put on his roller skates and he started on his first round, she stayed, her face all a-sparkle with fun and interest, calling out joking encouragements to him, and making such merry fun of his awkwardness that he laughed back at her. One quite forgot for the moment that he had not only no eyes, but very little face left.
Then, seeing him well started, already taking an interest in the new sport, she turned back across the courtyard. Now that it was no longer needed, the sparkle and animation had all gone from her face again. She looked very old and tired, and cross and severe; and one of the volunteer teachers (a wealthy woman, coming in to give a half-hour of English in the intervals of her shopping and dressmaking expeditions) thought what a disagreeable-looking woman the Directrice was.
Then, for half an hour, she was, by some extraordinary chance, left uninterrupted in her office, and dictated rapidly the answers to her morning mail. In order to accomplish as much as possible in this unheard-of period of quiet, she became a sort of living flame of attention. The real meaning of each letter was sucked out of it by a moment's intense scrutiny. She had but a moment, in each case, to make the decision, sometimes a very important one. The wealthy American lady who wanted to be on the Committee was referred vaguely to some far-distant authority, who would in turn refer her to some one else, and so put her off without offending her; because if it is possible, wealthy people, no matter how preposterous or self-seeking, must not be offended. The money which Providence has so curiously placed in their hands means too much to the needy charges in the care of the Directrice. She who, before the earthquake changes in her life, had been so scornful of self-seeking and pretentiousness, had now learnt a hundred adroit ways of setting those evil forces to turn the wheels of her mill. This was the part of her work she hated the most....
Another letter was from a blinded soldier in one of the hospitals, sent by one of his friends, since the authorities of the hospital would not permit him to write. He wanted to come to the Directrice's institution, and a clique in the hospital, who were jealous of it, were combining in a thousand subterranean ways to prevent his going there. It is very easy for two or three seeing people to circumvent a blind man. The Directrice did not answer this letter--she put it aside with a bright light of battle in her eyes and a slightly distended nostril.