"Dr. Passmore's housekeeper came to the door. Amanda could see her expression, the expression of someone interrupted in her work but determined to be obliging. A reedy, watery voice seemed to be gliding down the stairs. It was a man's voice singing about a foggy day in Londontown. Amanda sat on a shiny settee in the headmaster's study, her hands folded in her lap. Outside it was perfectly still. Sunday mornings at St. Matthew's were the silent times of the week, when the frantic business of work paused- stopped, so it had seemed, not because it wanted to, but because it had simply exhausted itself."