"I thought," said she, "I might see if Saltman had it. Then I could begin to cram to-night."
But no, he said that Saltman hadn't it, but would order it, of course. And then the scraping of a chair-leg advised all listeners that Mr. V.V. was violating that injunction laid upon him as to not getting up....
He advanced round the table-end, his hand raised in his nervous and characteristic gesture. So anyone who wished could see that deficiency at his elbow, about which he himself seemed so splendidly indifferent. He was as tall as Hugo; but Hugo, with his lordly good looks and beautiful clothes, was certainly a much more eye-catching figure. And yet, as she straightened now and looked, the knowledge shot suddenly through Cally that this doctor in his patches somehow looked, that he had always looked, rather the finer gentleman of the two....
"Johnson's the publisher," said V.V., coming to a halt in front of her. And then, taking the sheets of note-paper unconsciously from her unresisting hands, he added, looking down:
"But--how'd you mean just now ... that I--I've accomplished so--so much?"
By now Cally could smile, in quite a natural-seeming way; and this she did, full under the prophetic gaze, revealing shining white teeth and glimpses of a rose-lined mouth. And if "he was a Hun, she had always been the loveliest of them, God wot....
"I'm beginning to believe," said she, "that you're not such a very strange man, after...."
So she ended; her gaze shifting, the smile dying on her lip. For the door of the library had opened authoritatively, and that difficulty which had embarrassed her all through the afternoon suddenly confronted her upon the threshold.
Mr. Heth, of the Works, en route to his study, was briefly surprised by the little tableau he had stumbled upon. But seeing young men about the house at all hours wan no nine days' wonder for him; and he came on in with quite his usual air.
"Ah, Cally! Didn't know anybody was in here," said papa; and he glanced from her, with amiable expectancy, toward the stranger. "What's this confabulation about?"