“Well, you must think better of that feeling, for I really love any one to ask me a favour. [p91] I believe all stout people are the same, a little weakness of the flesh, you know”; and Miss Kinross gave her visitor a smile so winning, so encouraging, that Miss Bibby’s heart began to beat in its normal fashion again.
“But first,” continued Miss Kinross, “we will have some tea. Now don’t say you have had yours, if there is one thing I dislike it is drinking my afternoon tea in solitary state.”
No, Miss Bibby had not had tea; Thomas’s letter and the Serenade together had put even her severe afternoon drink of plain cold water out of her head.
But when Miss Kinross made a favour of it like that, how could she refuse to receive a cup when the maid carried out the tray?
“Yes,” she said to the query about sugar, and “Yes” to milk. And “Yes, fairly strong,” when asked how she liked it. No one would have dreamed it was more than six years since her last cup.
Possibly it was the unaccustomed stimulant that loosened her tongue; possibly it was the warm womanly sympathy that shone in her hostess’s brown eyes—eyes that had made more than one person declare that Kate Kinross was absolutely beautiful, despite her avoirdupois. At any rate, Miss Bibby found herself pouring out all the story of her thwarted life, all the long tragedy of the [p92] seven declined novels in the trunk across the road.
Miss Kinross gave eager sympathy. That was nothing, nothing; many authors now famous had been declined again and again.
“Seven times?” asked Miss Bibby, with gentle mournfulness.
“Certainly,” said Miss Kinross stoutly. “Why, look at Hugh, it is his favourite boast that there isn’t a publisher in England who has not refused him at one time or another; nor one who wouldn’t be glad to accept him to-day.”
“Mr. Kinross—refused!” echoed Miss Bibby. Her world seemed in need of reconstruction for a minute. Then a strange warmth and comfort gathered about her poor heart. This made the author less terribly aloof, less altogether impossible to question if she should have the happiness of obtaining an interview.