The doctor was at home, but he was engaged, at the moment, in the
surgery.
The maid-servant asked if she would wait.
She waited in the little cold and formal dining-room that looked
through two windows on to the Green. So formal and so cold, so utterly
impersonal was the air of the doctor's mahogany furniture that her
fear left her. It was as if the furniture assured her that she would
not really _see_ Rowcliffe; as for knowing him, she needn't worry.
She had sent in her card, printed for convenience with the names of
the three sisters:
Miss Cartaret.
Miss Gwendolen Cartaret.
Miss Alice Cartaret.
She felt somehow that it protected her. She said to herself, "He won't
know which of us it is."
* * * * *
Rowcliffe was washing his hands in the surgery when the card was
brought to him. He frowned at the card.
"But--You've brought this before," he said. "I've seen the lady."
"No, sir. It's another lady."
"Another? Are you certain?"
"Yes, sir. Quite certain."
"Did she come on a bicycle?"
"No, sir, that was the lady you've seen. I think this'll be her
sister."
Rowcliffe was still frowning as he dried his hands with fastidious
care.
"She's different, sir. Taller like."
"Taller?"
"Yes, sir."
Rowcliffe turned to the table and picked up a probe and a lancet and
dropped them into a sterilising solution.
The maid waited. Rowcliffe's absorption was complete.
"Shall I ask her to call again, sir?"
"No. I'll see her. Where is she?"
"In the dining-room, sir."
"Show her into the study."
* * * * *
Nothing could have been more distant and reserved than Rowcliffe's
dining-room. But, to a young woman who had made up her mind that she
didn't want to know anything about him, Rowcliffe's study said too
much. It told her that he was a ferocious and solitary reader; for in
the long rows of book shelves the books leaned slantwise across the
gaps where his hands had rummaged and ransacked. It told her that his
gods were masculine and many--Darwin and Spencer and Haeckel, Pasteur,
Curie and Lord Lister, Thomas Hardy, Walt Whitman and Bernard
Shaw. Their photogravure portraits hung above the bookcase. He was
indifferent to mere visible luxury, or how could he have endured
the shabby drugget, the cheap, country wall-paper with its design of
dreadful roses on a white watered ground? But the fire in the grate
and the deep arm-chair drawn close to it showed that he loved warmth
and comfort. That his tastes made him solitary she gathered from the
chair's comparatively unused and unworn companion, lurking and sulking
in the corner where it had been thrust aside.
The one window of this room looked to the west upon a little orchard,
gray trunks of apple trees and plum trees against green grass, green
branches against gray stone, gray that was softened in the liquid
autumn air, green that was subtle, exquisite, charmingly austere.
He could see his little orchard as he sat by his fire. She thought she
rather liked him for keeping his window so wide open.
She was standing by it looking at the orchard as he came in.
* * * * *
He was so quiet in his coming that she did not see or hear him till he
stood before her.
And in his eyes, intensely quiet, there was a look of wonder and of
incredulity, almost of concern.
Greetings and introductions over, the unused arm-chair was brought out
from its lair in the corner. Rowcliffe, in his own arm-chair, sat in
shadow, facing her. What light there was fell full on her.
"I'm sorry you should have had to come to me," he said, "your sister
was here a minute or two ago."
"My sister?"
"I think it _must_ have been your sister. She said it was _her_ sister
I was to go and see."
"I didn't know she was coming. She never told me."
"Pity. I was coming out to see you first thing tomorrow morning."
"Then you know? She told you?"
"She told me something." He smiled. "She must have been a little
overanxious. You don't look as if there was very much the matter with
you."
"But there isn't. It isn't me."
"Who is it then?"
"My other sister."
"Oh. I seem to have got a little mixed."
"You see, there are three of us."
He laughed.
"Three! Let me get it right. I've seen Miss Cartaret. You are Miss
Gwendolen Cartaret. And the lady I am to see is--?
"My youngest sister, Alice."
"Now I understand. I wondered how you managed those four miles. Tell
me about her."
She began. She was vivid and terse. He saw that she made short cuts
to the root of the matter. He showed himself keen and shrewd. Once or
twice he said "I know, I know," and she checked herself.
"My sister has told you all that."
"No, she hasn't. Nothing like it. Please go on."