Not being of them herself she set all the greater store on knowing those she considered exactly the right people.
"I don't think I have——" she commenced in her most primpsy voice, when she was interrupted with a perfectly odious familiarity.
"Now you're not going to say that you don't remember our little meetings in Earls Court and Fleet Street and"—the man spoke with an extreme slowness as though keeping guard over each letter of each word—"and our little correspondence, come now."
Leonie frowned and moved a step forward protectingly as her aunt caught suddenly at the door handle, and then jerked herself forward with outstretched hand.
"Auntie, dear——"
But her aunt was speaking in the falsetto of forced levity, and Leonie held her peace and waited for an opportunity to slip past and into the house.
"Why, I do believe," said Susan Hetth, suddenly metamorphosed by a certain tone in the man's voice into the terrified woman of years ago, "Yes! I do believe it is Mr. Walter Hickle——"
"Sir Walter, if you please."
"Indeed, in-deed—how very delightful, and after all these years!
Leonie, this is—is—er——"
"I'm one of your aunt's friends, Miss Leonie, bobbed up out of the past. Glad to meet you, hope we shall be friends, too."