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Everything that McGuire did was with a quiet, almost a furtive ease; the manner was perhaps lazily smooth rather than furtive, but he always moved quietly, as if he did not like the muscular effort of making a clatter.

Suddenly he looked across his shoulder, staring. Nerves that did not reach his ears had warned him, and he saw that the door had been slightly opened. It had not clicked shut when he pushed it as he came in. A nebulously veiled face was peering through.

He half turned, not rising, but shoving with his knee to close the drawer. It would not close. He stood up, placing himself before it, his hands behind him.

He said with an appearance of bold irritation, "Come in. Come on in if you want, or get out!"

The door opened farther, swinging slowly back.

The woman seemed rather small, but she was heavily wrapped, either against chill or as a disguise; perhaps something of both. She made a dark, indistinct figure in the doorway; there was no break between her dress and the shadows in which she stood. All of her was black except the veil, that was like a mist across her face. That was grey. A tingling of strange perfume reached him.