“How many of ‘em? Twenty? Good Lord! It’s going to be worse than ‘Diadems.’ I’ve just had my first quiet breakfast in two years—time to read the papers and loaf. How I used to dread the sight of my letter-box! Now I sha’n’t know I have one.”
He leaned over Vyse’s chair, and the secretary handed him a letter.
“Here’s rather an exceptional one—lady, evidently. I thought you might want to answer it yourself—”
“Exceptional?” Betton ran over the mauve pages and tossed them down. “Why, my dear man, I get hundreds like that. You’ll have to be pretty short with her, or she’ll send her photograph.”
He clapped Vyse on the shoulder and turned away, humming a tune. “Stay to luncheon,” he called back gaily from the threshold.
After luncheon Vyse insisted on showing a few of his answers to the first batch of letters. “If I’ve struck the note I won’t bother you again,” he urged; and Betton groaningly consented.
“My dear fellow, they’re beautiful—too beautiful. I’ll be let in for a correspondence with every one of these people.”
Vyse, at this, meditated for a while above a blank sheet. “All right—how’s this?” he said, after another interval of rapid writing.
Betton glanced over the page. “By George—by George! Won’t she see it?” he exulted, between fear and rapture.
“It’s wonderful how little people see,” said Vyse reassuringly.