Then she waited.
The door opened, closed, and, after a minute's pause, one of the two men--Damaris did not know which, she could not bring herself to look--coming from between the stumpy pillars walked towards her down the half-length of the room; and bent over her, resting one hand on the back of her chair, the other on the leather inlay of the writing-table just beside the little pile of house-books.
The hand was young, sunburnt, well-shaped, the finger nails well kept.
Across the back of it a small-bodied, wide-winged sea-bird, in apparent act of flight, and the letters D.V.F.were tattooed in blue and crimson.
A gold bangle, the surface of it dented in places and engraved with Japanese characters, encircled the fine lean wrist.

These Damaris saw, and they worked upon her strangely, awakening an emotion of almost painful tenderness, as at sight of decorations pathetically fond, playfully child-like and ingenuous.

While, as he bent over her, she also became aware of a freshness, a salt sweetness as of the ocean and the great vacant spaces where all the winds of the world blow keen and free.
"Sir Charles wrote to me," Faircloth said a little huskily.

"He told me I might come and see you again and talk to you, and bid you good-bye before I go to sea.

And I should have been here sooner, but that I was away at Southampton Docks, and the letter only reached me this morning.