“Not until afternoon, at any rate,” he said. “Come to-morrow, certainly—whenever you like. You needn't be afraid of that rabble. I'll see you don't have to go near them.”
“You must please not make any difference or alter your arrangements on my account,” she said. “I am quite used to meeting all sorts of people in my profession, and I don't object to it in the least. Won't you go now? I think that that was your dinner-bell.”
He hesitated, obviously embarrassed but determined. “There is one question,” he said, “which I should very much like to ask you. It will sound impertinent. I don't mean it so. I can't explain exactly why I want to know, but I have a reason.”
“Ask it by all means,” she said. “I'll promise that I'll answer it if I can.”
“You say that you are—a journalist. Have you taken it up for a pastime, or—to earn money?”
“To earn money by all means,” she answered, laughing. “I like the work, but I shouldn't care for it half so much if I didn't make my living at it. Did you think that I was an amateur?”
“I didn't know,” he answered slowly. “Thank you. You will come to-morrow?”
“Of course! Good evening.”
“Good evening.”
Trent lifted his hat, and turned away unwillingly towards the house, full of a sense that something wonderful had happened to him. He was absent-minded, but he stopped to pat a little dog whose attentions he usually ignored, and he picked a creamy-white rose as he crossed the lawn and wondered why it should remind him of her.