Presently a latch key grated in the lock and the street door was opened with extreme caution. A gentleman entered wrapped in a long overcoat. He did not immediately perceive Rachel. Divesting himself of the coat, he blew imaginary particles of dust from its sable collar and hung it on the rack; then he removed his hat and disclosed a long head, bare on top, and trimmed with a sparse fringe of hair. This hair he proceeded to smooth into place with quick motions of his hands; he even drew his fingers through it. Then he turned round. Her scrutiny was older than his, and the prophetic, vague apprehension had mounted, mounted. She glanced aside; he could not. There are moments when surprise stirs a mind like a stick thrust into a pool. The ordinarily clear surface of the water reveals sodden leaves, mud, perhaps even shrinking plants; the eye usually enigmatic, unfathomable, reveals hidden weaknesses, sins, temerities. When he beheld her, a young girl, seated in his hall, in Simon Hart's hollow cheek the blood slowly mantled. He was as clean-shaven as a monk, save for the barely indicated line of a moustache above the narrow lips. His nose was handsome, though pointed; his chin was cleft. One ear was a little higher than the other. After a perceptible pause he passed her, bowing slightly, and proceeded through the drawing-room with his soft tread. His legs were short, but his shoulders and head were imposing. He was like a building begun by a carpenter and finished by an architect. In the dining room he approached the sideboard and poured some liquor from a decanter. He did not, however, drink the liquor, but stood holding the glass. And this vision of him was reflected in the dining room mirror, caught again in the small mirror above the hall-rack and repeated indefinitely in the bevellings. Rachel was unfamiliar with Piranesi's series of engravings in which the artist is represented climbing an everlasting staircase, or this multiplied vision of Simon Hart, continued through one room after another, until he disappeared with his glass in the border of the last mirror, might have suggested to her a similar allegory. She directed toward him a second glance, wistful, unconsciously searching, and at that moment her grandfather descended the stairs and the servant appeared to show them out. In the open Rachel straightway forgot all presentiments and the meeting wore in her memory an aspect ordinary enough. Old David was elated. "I tell ye, I never see anything like what he's got up there," he cried. "There's butterfly wings all sparklin' with jewels, and mosquito legs--"