“It doesn’t matter,” said Kitty, more shyly than she had ever spoken in her life. She liked his eyes and his voice as much as she loathed the expressive backs of his two companions.
“If you could come again: perhaps Aunt Kate will be here on Thursday. I know she will be sorry to miss you,” the young man went on.
“I think I won’t call again, thank you,” said Kitty. “I—I’ll write, thank you; it is all right. I oughtn’t to have come. Good-bye.”
There was nothing for it but to stand back and let her pass. The editor went back slowly to his room. His friends had relighted their pipes.
“Appeased the outraged goddess?” asked one of them.
“Good old Aunt Kate!” said the other.
“Shut up, Sellars!” said the editor, frowning.
“Now, which of your correspondents is it?” pondered Sellars, ruffling the bundle of papers in his hand. “Is it ‘Wild Woodbine,’ who wants to know what will make her hands white? Chilcott, did you see her hands? Oh no, of course—bien chaussée, bien gantée. All brown, too. Is it ‘Sylph’?—no; she wants a pattern for a Zouave. What is a Zouave, if you please, Mr Editor?”
“Dry up!” said the editor, but Sellars was busy with the papers.
“Eureka! I know her. She’s ‘Nut-brown Maid’—here’s the letter—wants to know if she may talk to ‘a young gentleman she has not been properly introduced to’—spells it ‘interoduced,’ too——”