"Good morning," he said pleasantly, "what extraordinary weather we are having."
She made the most distant acknowledgment and continued in her attentions to the flowers.
"And how is the cat?" he asked with all the bland benevolence of an Episcopalian bench. She made no reply.
"Poor Tibby," he said with gentle melancholy—
"Poor quiet soul, poor modest lass,
Thine is a tale that shall not pass."
The girl made no response.
"On the subject of De Gotha," he went on with an apologetic hesitation, "I——"
The girl straightened her back and turned a flushed face towards him. A strand of hair had loosened and hung limply over her forehead, and this she brushed back quickly.
"As you insist upon humiliating me," she said, "let me add to my self abasement by apologizing for the injustice I did you. My copy of the Almanac De Gotha is an old one and the page on which your name occurs has been torn out evidently by one of my maids——"
"For curling paper, I'll be bound," he wagged his head wisely.