"'You must be mistaking me for some one else,' I replied. 'I am not eminent in any way, and your readers can not possibly—' She interrupted me, 'Oh! but you are Sir Henry Ballinger's daughter, and, as such, are quite an interesting personality in America. We thought a heap of him. We claim that his book had a bigger circulation in the States than in England.'
"'It is a pity, then, that the States paid him nothing for it,' I said. 'But do you really mean that you consider the relations of a well-known man to be public property? I have not even written a book that can be pirated. I don't lecture, or preach, or act. I am a perfectly obscure individual, whom your readers cannot possibly know anything about.'
"'Oh! but they do,' she insisted. 'They've seen your photograph among the society beauties; they've read your name in the society papers; they know you belong to the tip-top swells. And then there was the report which went all the round of the States that a German prince had nearly blown out his brains for love of you.'
"This was more than I could stand. I rose quickly. 'You must pardon me if I decline to continue this conversation. I am not accountable for all the rubbish you may have heard, but at least I will not be a party to disseminating more. Good-morning.'
"'You might just tell me why you are come here, and—and a few other things?'
"'Nothing at all. I wish to remain unnoticed.'
"'Well! That is real disobliging. But if you conclude to say nothing, I guess it's no good my staying.'
"'No,' I repeated after her, 'I guess it's no good.'
"And so she left the room. Mordy says I ought to have submitted to the infliction, and that I showed my usual want of worldly wisdom in snubbing a reporter. But why? It is all very well for him to see these people: he has had a tribe of them after him, and it may be proper and even useful that he should see them all. But in my case it would be worse than ridiculous, and I think it a gross piece of impertinence on Miss Clutch's part, trying to force publicity upon me.