"'Oh, that?' she said. 'That is not mine. It belongs to Mr. Howard.'
"The words 'Mr. Howard' grated upon my nerves. Up to this moment, except through the translatophone, she had not addressed me by my name in any form; and every tentative lover knows that when his lady addresses him as though he had no name it means that she does not wish to use his formal title and that the time has not arrived for her to call him by his Christian name.
"'You deaf?' cried Sarah, turning to me. 'I have never heard anything of that. When did it come on? It must have been very recent.'
"'Oh, he isn't deaf,' said Mary, impatiently. 'It is only one of his inventions. But tell me something of your brothers. I have not heard a word about them yet.'
"But the knowledge-loving Sarah was not to be bluffed off in this way.
"'Oh, they are all right,' said she. 'They are both in college now. But Mr. Howard deaf! I am truly amazed. Do you have to talk to him through this, Mary?'
"Mary Armat was not an ill-natured girl, but, as I said before, she was a high-spirited one, and was at the time in a state of justifiable irritation.
"'Oh, bother that thing!' she answered. 'I told you it is only one of his inventions, and I wish he would put it in his pocket.'
"'Not just yet,' said Sarah. 'I am really anxious to know about it. Why do you use it, Mr. Howard, if you are not deaf?'
"My face must have displayed my extreme embarrassment at this unanswerable question, for Mary came to my relief.