§ 2
After he had told her her faults (which took some time) and given her something definite to practise, the hour was nearly up, and he gave sundry indications that the lesson was finished.
“By the way,” he said, as she was on the way to the door, “did you forget last Saturday?”
She might easily have said yes. Or she might have told the strict truth, viz. that she had forgotten the hour he had fixed. But she did neither.
“No,” she said, “I just didn’t come.”
He looked at her very much as Miss Forsdyke had looked at her when she had been impudent.
“Oh!” he replied, with a gesture that might have meant anything. “Well, the next time you intend to ’cut’ one of my lessons, drop me a card beforehand, then I shan’t be kept waiting for you. My time’s valuable.”
Curt!
And as she passed the table in the hall he suddenly gathered up a heap of some dozen letters, and said: “By the way, you might shove these in the pillar-box down the road as you go by.”
Before she realized the situation the letters were in her hands.
“Thanks!” he replied, opening the front door. “Good evening!”
If she had had the presence of mind she would have flung them all back at him. “I’m not your office-boy,” she might have said.
But presence of mind did not come to her till she was half-way down the Ridgeway.
She occupied her time as far as the pillar-box by reading the addresses on all the envelopes....