She motioned him to a seat, and he obeyed as in a dream. He was sitting in the library of some old scholar. He had come about as near to guessing father as Sir William came when he guessed quinine and discovered mauve.
He clung to the collie and for the first time understood what bashfulness is like.
“Wonderful dog,” he said at last.
“Yes, Agricola has his points.”
The young man searched his memory in vain, like one who has laboriously primed himself to listen to the converse of specialists, only to be left behind at the first sentence. Yet “Agricola” sounded strangely familiar. He reckoned it was one of Julius Caesar’s men, the one perhaps that built a bridge across a French river.
“Did you call on business?”
“Why, yes. Miss Rich. I’m on my way to the fish market. I understand that perch are selling very reasonably this morning—eighty cents a pound, if the market report is correct—and I wished to order, say, ten pounds.”
She looked at him demurely.
“I keep the market myself, but I’m out of perch. The hotel took them all.”
“Could I—could you direct me to the hotel?”