She had just risen from her chair, and was coming forward; a soft white cashmere shawl hung around her; her dress, of some dark rich stuff, fell with the flowing, stately lines peculiar to it; her face was slightly flushed, and the brilliancy of her colour, of her hair, of her white, outstretched hand, seemed to Kendal to take all the chill and gloom out of the winter air.

She held some proof sheets of a new play in her hand, and the rest lay piled beside her on a little table.
'How kind of you, Mr.Kendal,' she said, advancing with her quick impulsive step towards him.

'I thought you had forgotten us, and I have been wanting your advice so badly! I have just been complaining of you a little in a letter to Madame de Chateauvieux! She--' Then she suddenly stopped, checked and startled by his face.

He was always colourless and thin, but the two nights he had just passed through had given him an expression of haggard exhaustion.

His black eyes seemed to have lost the keenness which was so remarkable in them, and his prematurely gray hair gave him almost a look of age in spite of the lightness and pliancy of the figure.
He came forward, and took her hand nervously and closely in his own.
'I have come to bring you sad news,' he said gently, and seeking anxiously word by word how he might soften what, after all, could not be softened.