"Unexpected obstacle. Please don't come till thirtieth.
Anna."
She had put him off at the very last moment, and for the
second time: put him off with all her sweet reasonableness,
and for one of her usual "good" reasons--he was certain that
this reason, like the other, (the visit of her husband's
uncle's widow) would be "good"! But it was that very
certainty which chilled him. The fact of her dealing so
reasonably with their case shed an ironic light on the idea
that there had been any exceptional warmth in the greeting
she had given him after their twelve years apart.
They had found each other again, in London, some three
months previously, at a dinner at the American Embassy, and
when she had caught sight of him her smile had been like a
red rose pinned on her widow's mourning. He still felt the
throb of surprise with which, among the stereotyped faces of
the season's diners, he had come upon her unexpected face,
with the dark hair banded above grave eyes; eyes in which he
had recognized every little curve and shadow as he would
have recognized, after half a life-time, the details of a
room he had played in as a child. And as, in the plumed
starred crowd, she had stood out for him, slender, secluded
and different, so he had felt, the instant their glances
met, that he as sharply detached himself for her. All that
and more her smile had said; had said not merely "I
remember," but "I remember just what you remember"; almost,
indeed, as though her memory had aided his, her glance flung
back on their recaptured moment its morning brightness.
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