He looked at Mrs. Bagot, at her plain navy blue skirt and her plain white blouse and her smooth brown hair, and he looked curiously around the small crowded sitting room, and rested his hands on the arms of his chair while he made a careful survey of the ceiling, and of the Greek frieze that ran all around the top edge of the wallpaper to make an ornamental border. He looked at the folding doors that closed off the back sitting room. Mrs. Bagot considered the back sitting room very ordinary, with its linoleum-covered floor and its gas fire and its big table where the children did their homework and where they all had their dinner on Sundays. The Bishop was very anxious to see what lay beyond the folding doors. He was full of curiosity about Mrs. Bagot. She had been born at Poulbwee, the farm he loved more than any other place on earth. His own family had all died out. There was not one left belonging to him around there, but he could still be sure of Poulbwee. He glanced from the folding doors to Mrs. Bagot and back to the folding doors again before he asked his first question.

“I suppose you have another room in there,” he said reluctantly.

“Oh, the back sitting room,” Mrs. Bagot said. “Or if you like you can call it the dining room. It’s quite different from this room. The children do their lessons, their homework, on the big table in there, and I have the sewing machine, and we all have dinner in there on Sundays. Sometimes I open the folding doors back. I am keeping them closed today because of the draft. I don’t want you catching a cold, Father.”

The Bishop said nothing.

“Would you like to see in there?” she asked in surprise, smiling at him.

“I wouldn’t mind the draft,” the Bishop said. “Anyway it’s very sheltered here, beside the fire.”

She stood up and opened the doors. She had cleaned the whole house in honor of the Bishop’s visit, and now she was very glad she had polished this room. The smell of the wax and polish came to her, and the room seemed dim and rested in contrast with the commotion in the front room, where there was the tea table and the ferns and the big Bishop. The Bishop leaned sideways in his armchair to try to see everything, and then he got to his feet and came very slowly over to where she stood, helping himself on the way with his hand on the back of the chair where she had been sitting. When he reached the edge of the linoleum floor he stood and supported himself with his hand against the folded door. Mrs. Bagot lifted one of the dining-room chairs over, and he put both hands on the back of it and leaned on it as though it were a railing.