He bowed very slightly, and immediately everybody felt sure he was a waiter. Only a professional could have bowed so chillingly.
Catherine, with flushed face and dishevelled hair, leaned against a chair, panting from her exertion.
“I do not wish to interrupt,” began the stranger, and there might have been sarcasm in his voice, “but I have been commissioned to deliver a message to Miss Weston. Which is Miss Weston?”
“I am Miss Weston,” gasped Catherine. Then, to everyone’s amazement, she proceeded furiously: “I know it—I know it. You needn’t tell me! I saw it in the papers ... I suppose they’ll say it’s all my fault.... Do they want me? ... if so, I’ll come. I’ll come with you now if you like....”
The stranger raised his eyebrows slightly.
“I have no desire for you to come anywhere with me.... I don’t know what you are talking about, either. My message is contained in this note, and there is no immediate necessity to reply to it.”
Somebody said, rather in the spirit of a heckler at a political meeting: “Who sent it?” The stranger turned and said: “I should think Miss Weston and not I should be asked that.” The questioner subsided ignominiously.
Catherine took the envelope that the stranger offered her. She put it unread into her pocket. The stranger bowed and walked out. Silence.... Then a chatter of conversation.
“Admirer of yours,” said the violinist, thickly, from his couch. Everybody thought he had been asleep.
“Didn’t exactly get you at a good moment,” remarked the tenor singer, flicking away his cigar-ash.