Nor did Mrs Rimbolt, siting on the sofa beside her friend, heed his entrance till Percy said,-- "Hullo, Jeff!" Jeffreys became aware that the eyes of the whole party were suddenly centred on him--Mrs Rimbolt's from under lifted eyebrows, Mrs Scarfe's through raised eye-glasses, Raby's with a veiled welcome, Scarfe's in blank astonishment.

He advanced awkwardly into the room.
"Close the door, please, Mr Jeffreys," said Mrs Rimbolt, in tones which left no manner of doubt in her visitors' minds as to the status of the librarian in the house.
Jeffreys obeyed, and advanced once more towards Raby.
"Your uncle," stammered he, conscious of nothing but Scarfe's stare, "asked me to bring you this book." Then, turning with a desperate effort to his old schoolfellow, he said, "How are you, Scarfe ?" He scorned himself for the half-appealing tone in which the salutation was made.

What was Scarfe to him?
Nothing, save that Scarfe and he had both looked down that October afternoon on the motionless form of one small boy in the Bolsover meadow.

And was that nothing?
"How do you do, Jeffreys ?" said Scarfe, stiffly extending his hand, and immediately afterwards returning to his examination of the prints with Raby.
"Do you know Jeff ?" asked Percy, who had witnessed the recognition.
"Yes.

Jeffreys and I have met," said Scarfe, not looking up from his book.
"Who is that young man ?" said Mrs Scarfe, in an audible whisper to her hostess.
"The librarian here.