Miss Calthorpe cast down her eyes, swallowed as if she were choking, and then murmured faintly: "I don't know him."
"What? Don't know him?" her friend demanded explosively.
"Only the name he puts on his book: Christopher Calumus."
"Which of course isn't his name at all. How in the world came you to write to him?"
The air of Mrs. Harbinger became each moment more judicially moral, while that of May was correspondingly humble and deprecatory. In the interval during which the forgetful Graham returned with the teacups they sat silent. The culprit was twisting nervously a fold of her frock, creasing it in a manner which would have broken the heart of the tailor who made it. The judge regarded her with a look which was half impatient, but full, too, of disapproving sternness.
"How could you write to a man you don't know," insisted Mrs. Harbinger,—"a man of whom you don't even know the name? How could you do such a thing?"
"Why, you see," stammered May, "I thought—that is—Well, I read the book, and—Oh, you know, Mrs. Harbinger, the book is so perfectly lovely, and I was just wild over it, and I—I—"
"You thought that being wild over it wasn't enough," interpolated the hostess in a pause; "but you must make a fool of yourself over it."
"Why, the book was so evidently written by a gentleman, and a man that had fine feelings," the other responded, apparently plucking up courage, "that I—You see, I wanted to know some things that the book didn't tell, and I—"
"You wrote to ask!" her friend concluded, jumping up, and standing before her companion. "Oh, for sheer infernal mischief commend me to one of you demure girls that look as if butter wouldn't melt in your mouths! If your father had known enough to have you educated at home instead of abroad, you'd have more sense."