The Saintsbury Affair

Transcriber's Notes: 1. Page scan source: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZK0RAAAAYAAJ&pg (Harvard College Library)
The Saintsbury Affair
Let me see where the story begins. Perhaps I can date it from the telephone invitation to dinner which I received one Monday from my dear and kind friend Mrs. Whyte.
And see that you are just as clever and agreeable as your naturally morose nature will permit, she said saucily. I have a charming young lady here as my guest, and I want you to make a good impression.
Another? I gasped. So soon?
I don't wonder that your voice is choked with surprise and gratitude, she retorted, and I could see with my mind's eye how her eyebrows went up. You don't deserve it,--I'll admit that freely. But I am of a forgiving nature.
You are so near to being an angel, I interrupted, that it gives me genuine pleasure to suffer martyrdom at your behest. I welcome the opportunity to show you how devotedly I am your slave. Who is the young lady this time?
Miss Katherine Thurston. Now if you would only talk in that way to her ,--
I won't, I said hastily. At least, not until her hair is as white as yours is,--it can never be as lovely. But for your sake I will undertake to be as witty and amiable and generally delightful as I think it safe to be, having due regard for the young lady's peace of mind,--. I rang off just in time to escape the You conceited puppy! which I knew was panting to get on the wire. Mrs. Whyte's speech was at times that of an older generation.
So that was how I came to go to Mrs. Whyte's dinner that memorable Monday evening, and to meet Katherine Thurston.
But now that I come to look at it in this historical way, I see that I shall have to begin a little farther back, or you won't understand the significance of what took place that night.
I already had another engagement for that evening, but I thought I could fit the two appointments in, by getting away from Mrs. Whyte's by ten o'clock. Under the circumstances she would forgive an early departure. My other engagement was of a peculiar and unescapable nature. It had come about in this way.