"I beg your pardon," he said. "I have come for some large-sized paper. My aunt used to have it kept in this drawer, I think."
Katherine Bush rose while he went to get it out for himself—he was not her employer, and she did not yet know where things were kept, so she did not offer to help him. He was in evening dress, and his hair was as well groomed as Lord Algy's, but not cut quite so short, and it was brushed straight back from his forehead and was brown and thick. His face was tired and humorous and very distinguished, but for the moment he looked cross and impatient. The paper was evidently not where he had thought that it would be.
"Confound it!" he muttered, almost inaudibly, and then aloud, "I am in a great hurry. Will you please look in those cupboards while I look in these?"
Katherine Bush did as she was asked, and chanced upon the paper immediately. She handed it to him without a word. She noticed that he hardly looked at her, and did not take in her personality at all. She was just his aunt's new secretary and typist; and more important matters pressed.
"Thanks, awfully;" then he glanced at the table, where the typing machine used by Miss Arnott stood. "Oh!—er—I was wondering if you would be so awfully kind as to type this when I have written it; it is a letter I must send to the Times, and I shall have to go in to dinner in a minute.'
"I have not seen how this machine works yet," Katherine Bush answered, "but if you care to dictate, I can take it down in shorthand and then write it out very quickly afterwards."
"That is most kind of you—will you come into the library then?—my notes are there."
She followed him silently, and when he had found some scribbled words written on the back of an envelope, he went to the hearth-rug, and, leaning against the mantelpiece, began to speak. Katherine had taken up a block and pencil and was waiting ready.
He was not coherent at first; he had neither Mr. Livingstone's precise, oily slowness, nor Mr. Devereux's crisp fluency. She took down exactly what he had said. Then he asked her to read it aloud.