"Young gentleman here with a letter, Mr. Garrott. Admit him?"
Returning to actuality with a slight start, Charles replied, "Admit him—certainly!" A day for letters, indeed!
Forthwith, the Judge standing aside, the young gentleman stepped into the Studio. A grave-looking young gentleman he proved to be, of some sixteen years, perhaps, with a dome-like forehead, a resolute mouth, and thick spectacles. He entered in silence, in silence held out the missive referred to.
"Good-evening," said Charles. "Thank you. This comes from—?"
"My sister, Angela Flower."
The young man's heart seemed to drop a little.
"Ah, yes! And—ah—is there—an answer?—"
"I'll wait and see," said Wallie Flower, following instructions, in a deep, calm voice.
"Ah, yes. Sit down a moment, won't you?"
He essayed a bright negligence which he was far from feeling: this thing had come suddenly. No amount of scientific argument, no recollection of sharp rebukes received, had ever convinced Charles that he had cut a fine figure in the affair on the sofa. Indeed, the very ease with which he had avoided all further consequences of his Rash Act, by the purely mechanical device of street-cars, had deepened, rather than diminished his consciousness of obligations unfulfilled, of caddishness, in short. To salute a girl tenderly after her bridge-party, and then never go within a mile of her again—well, that was a little crude, say what you would.