And behind the door marked in black lettering: "Private," a world given away....
Would she speak to him—coming out?
"And now if you'd just put your name to the contract, Miss O'Neill——"
The preliminaries of the interview had been conducted on a note of frigid decorum from Alexander—in case anyone should suspect that he admired the cut of this creature's tan tailor-made—and with much demure diffidence on the part of Patricia; while Campbell dashed himself alternately on one and then the other, after the fashion of an all too youthful Aberdeen terrier; and: "down, sir, down!" expressed in Alexander's restraining: "Certainly, Mr. Campbell, I was just coming to that."
"And I should like to tell ye, my dear young leddy, what my friend Lennox, editor of the 'Critic,' said to me about your closing chapter when I showed it to him——"
"Wouldn't it be as well, Mr. Campbell, to get this attended to, before we begin repeating the eulogies which Miss O'Neill's work so richly deserves?"
"Alexander's impetuous," Campbell confided to Pat, in an aside. "Ah, he's young! It's verra reesky to tek a young partner."
All of which, Patricia found immensely entertaining.
Then Alexander brought in the contract. "Take it home to digest at your leisure, if you'd rather!" Pat ran her eye down the clauses.