A high-complexioned, round-cheeked, forty-fivish lady, with agreeable eyes, dressed rather well in the black of the not-very-lately widowed, entered the room with precipitation. She patted Mr. Horsley on his declamatory right arm and, since he went on talking, she caught him by the hand and shook it. She exclaimed in high, commanding tones:
"Which is Mr. Macmaster, the critic?" and then, in the dead lull to Tietjens: "Are you Mr. Macmaster, the critic? No! . . . Then you must be."
Her turning to Macmaster and the extinction of her interest in himself had been one of the rudest things Tietjens had ever experienced, but it was an affair so strictly business-like that he took it without any offence. She was remarking to Macmaster:
"Oh, Mr. Macmaster, my new book will be out on Thursday week," and she had begun to lead him towards a window at the other end of the room.
Miss Wannop said:
"What have you done with Gertie?"
"Gertie!" Mrs. Wannop exclaimed with the surprise of one coming out of a dream. "Oh yes! She's fast asleep. She'll sleep till four. I told Hannah to give a look at her now and then."
Miss Wannop's hands fell open at her side.
"Oh, mother!" forced itself from her.
"Oh, yes," Mrs. Wannop said, "we'd agreed to tell old Hannah we didn't want her to-day. So we had!" She said to Macmaster: "Old Hannah is our charwoman," wavered a little and then went on brightly: "Of course it will be of use to you to hear about my new book. To you journalists a little bit of previous explanation . . ." and she dragged off Macmaster. . . .