His first glimpse of the interior, his subsequent study of the drawing-room while the maid carried in his name, made more vivid this impression.  The taste of the whole thing was evident; but the apartment had besides a special flavor.  He searched for the elements which gave that impression.  It was not the old walnut furniture, ample, huge, upholstered in a wine-colored velours which had faded just enough to take off the curse; it was not the three or four passable old paintings.  The real cause came first to him upon the contemplation of a wonderful Buddhist priest-robe which adorned the wall just where the drawing-room met the curtains of the little rear alcove-library.  The difference lay in the ornaments—­Oriental, mostly East Indian and, all his experience told him, got by intimate association with the Orientals.  That robe, that hanging lantern, those chased swords, that gem of a carved Buddha—­they came not from the seaports nor from the shops for tourists.  Whoever collected them knew the East and its peoples by intimate living.  They appeared like presents, not purchases—­unless they were loot.

And now—­his thumping heart flashed the signal—­the delicate feminine flutter that meant Annette, was sounding in the hall.  And now at the entrance stood Annette in a white dress, her neck showing a faint rim of tan above her girlish decolletage; Annette smiling rather formally as though this conventional passage after their unconventional meeting and acquaintance sat in embarrassment on her spirits; Annette saying in that vibrant boyish contralto which came always as a surprise out of her exquisite whiteness: 

“How do you do, Dr. Blake—­you are back in the city rather earlier than you expected, aren’t you?”

He was conscious of shock, emotional and professional—­emotional that they had not taken up their relation exactly where they left it off—­professional because of her appearance.  Not only was she pale and just a little drawn of facial line, but that indefinable look of one “called” was on her again.

All this he gathered as he made voluble explanation—­the attendance at the sanitorium had fallen off with the approach of autumn—­they really needed no assistant to the resident physician—­he thought it best to hurry his search for an opening in New York before the winter should set in.  Then, put at his ease by his own volubility, and remembering that it is a lover’s policy to hold the advantage gained at the last battle, he added: 

“And of course you may guess another reason.”

This she parried with a woman-of-the-world air, quite different from her old childlike frankness.

“The theatrical season, I suppose.  It opens earlier every year.”

He pursued that line no further.  She took up the reins of the conversation and drove it along smooth but barren paths.  “It’s nice that you could come to-night.  Looking for a practice must make so many calls on your time.  I shouldn’t have been surprised not to see you at all this winter.  No one seems able to spare much time for acquaintances in New York.”