Kitty was smiling despite her nervousness when the elderly servant, whom Hilda’s brother insisted on her retaining, announced “Mr. West.”
It was at once evident to Kitty that he and Hilda were the best of friends. Next moment he was introduced to her, and there was something in his handshake as well as in his eyes that took away half her shyness.
“Miss Carstairs has come from Scotland to spend a little time with me,” Hilda said presently, “so you must give her as good an impression of the journalistic life as you can.”
“You are not in the trade, I hope, Miss Carstairs?” he said, with a faint smile; then, suddenly—“But pardon me, perhaps you are a friend of Hugh Carstairs, of Glasgow, who wrote so brilliantly some years ago. I met him once in a friend’s house just before I came to London.”
“He was my father,” Kitty said softly, with a flush of pleasure.
“Then you and I shall have at least one big subject in common,” he said warmly.
“This is splendid!” said Hilda, smiling.
“Mr. Carstairs was my ideal journalist,” Anthony went on. “I’ve often wondered why he never wrote books. Perhaps he hadn’t the time—”
“Miss Carstairs has just been telling me,” said the hostess, “that she has in her possession several unfinished works of her father’s—”
“Not here? not in London?” he cried eagerly.