Mr. Plunkett nodded sympathetically but obviously could think of nothing else to say, yet the man went on standing there, frowning not in annoyance but only what seemed to be polite puzzlement, as if waiting for something more that he was sure was coming. Even when the chemist turned away pointedly the man still made no move to depart. This was something about him she would come to know well, this curious way he had of lingering in places or with people when there seemed nothing more that could happen; his manner was always relaxed and calm yet quietly expectant, as though he thought there must surely be something more and he was waiting to see if it might occur after all. She never heard him laugh, in all the time she knew him, nor did he smile, not what you would call a smile, but still he gave the impression of being quietly, benignly amused at something-or everything, more like.

That first time he did not look at her once, not directly, but she could feel him taking her in: that was how it felt to her, that he was somehow absorbing her. Most of the men who came into the shop were too timid to look at her, and would stand turned away a little from her, fidgeting, and grinning like fools with a tongue tip showing between their teeth. But Dr. Kreutz was not timid, oh, no-she had never before encountered a person of such self-confidence, such assurance. Contented, that was the word she thought of to describe him, quite contented-or quite quite contented, for that was another of his habits, the way he had of saying words twice over, so rapidly he made a single word of them, mostmost, quitequite, in his soft, amused, singsong voice.

He took out a little leather-bound notepad from the inside pocket of his jacket and tore a page out of it and insisted on writing down his address for Mr. Plunkett, in case the stuff he wanted should come in-it was only aloe vera, although she thought that day it was 'allo he was saying, like a Frenchman in a cartoon trying to say hello-and then left at last, ducking his dusky, narrow head as he went through the door, like a pilgrim, she thought, or one of those holy men, bowing devoutly on the threshold of a temple.