But silence was, in a particular way, a quality of Mrs. Loyalty’s figure, just like its slimness. And when, a few minutes later, she re-entered the room with her book in her hand, it was almost as though she had not re-entered the room or had never left it; perhaps a shadow faintly stirred among the shadows by the door, but the draught of her coming in did not seem to disturb the sensitive light of the candles. She moved one of them to the little table at the head of the sofa, she sat against the crimson cushion, and she read her book. But minutes passed and she did not turn over the page, so perhaps she was just pretending to read. Minutes passed, and then the light of the candles writhed across her page, and she looked up to see a great disturbance among the shadows by the door. She stared with very wide eyes at the dark apparition there, and her hand went to her heart in a still way she had, and she sighed curiously. The apparition came forward, and she stared at it with almost unbelieving eyes. “Joan,” the apparition said, “I never thought I should live to see you look frightened!” A gay voice, rather shy. He stood before her, a tall, very thin man, stooping a little, with feverish dark eyes set in a notably ascetic face, which had gained for him the comical name of “The Metaphysician.” His face was as though a fever lay behind it, a kind of sombre restlessness, but every now and then it would twitch into a shy smile; his face looked as though it had suffered much pain, but had never got used to pain. He smiled down at her intimately, but also shyly, which made the smile very attractive. “Well,” she said up to him softly, “you did come in rather like a ghost, didn’t you?” She seemed to examine him. “Didn’t Ralph tell you I was coming?” That seemed to surprise her, but she only shook her head slightly. “I saw Ralph at the club this evening and told him I might look in,” he added. “He didn’t tell me,” she said. “But why didn’t you let _me_ know?” “You see, Joan,” said Hugo Carr, “I’ve had as much as I can bear of this hole-and-corner business.” A shy way Mr. Carr had; he would say firm things in a very shy voice, with the fever always behind his face. That’s what makes him attractive to women, people said. “Hugo lays down the law,” once said George Tarlyon, “as though he were laying eggs and was afraid they might break.” He sat down on the sofa beside her, very close; on the edge of the sofa, sideways to her, with one knee almost on the ground. She lit a cigarette: and, seeing the appeal on his face, she smiled a little, her lips smiled, and she said softly: “Forgive me, dear, but I feel very silent. The heat, perhaps. But go on with your speech--please do! And I’m hoping, too, that it will contain some inside information as to why you have not been to see me or even rung me up for a week. It’s such bad luck for a woman,” she said softly, “when a man of honour remembers his honour. Don’t you think so, Hugo?”