When he threw open the door he recognized the figure that shrank back into the bare, dimly lit hallway.

He stood for a moment in awkward constraint, his pipe in his hand.
"Come in," he said to Hilda at last, and closed the door behind her.

He pointed to a chair by the fire and went back to his worktable.

"Won't you sit down ?" He was standing behind the table, turning over a pile of blueprints nervously.

The yellow light from the student's lamp fell on his hands and the purple sleeves of his velvet smoking-jacket, but his flushed face and big, hard head were in the shadow.