Mrs. Hopp rose with majesty.
“I won’t keep you, Sophie. I must catch my train. I am sorry you won’t come with me. You don’t know what you miss. And we may not have many more opportunities to do things together. I meant to tell you—if you had given me a chance.”
Mrs. Derwall took it with humility, yet with amiability.
“You really make me ashamed of myself, Julie,” she returned. “It was lovely of you to think of me. I’ll go with you another time—to the Palace or the Rivoli, perhaps. They are more in my line, you know. Good-bye, dearie.”
II
“Is this the lady of the house?” inquired the gentleman in the reception-room as Mrs. Derwall appeared upon the threshold.
This question caused her to halt in her progress, and recalled to her mind the fact that she had responded to the maid’s announcement with rather more precipitation than she might under other circumstances have displayed.
“It is,” she somewhat stiffly replied. “But I regret to say that she requires no books to-day.”
“O, please wait a minute!” cried the caller as she started to retire. “I knew I should trip up. I was so sure you would take me for a book agent that I hypnotised myself into beginning like one. But I’m not one. I never was one. I never shall be one. I abominate books!”
He ended almost violently. And as she listened Mrs. Derwall could see very well that he was not what she thought.