"Oh, do you know her?"
"I know who she is. And I have met her once."
"Isn't she perfectly beautiful? I should rather be like her than anyone else in the world."
Lyon smiled inscrutably, but his tongue was discreet if his eyes were not always. But instead of explaining to Kittie that Mrs. Broughton, beautiful as she was, could never hope to be as delightful as Miss Tayntor, he held himself strictly to the matter in hand.
"Mrs. Broughton is very ill, and Dr. Barry says that I must not disturb her by talking business. Now, it is very urgent that I should have a chance to talk business with her as soon as she is able to stand it,--at the very earliest moment possible. I was wondering if I could find out through you how she is getting on. I am afraid to trust Dr. Barry, you see. He will want to keep me off, and it may be too late to do any good by the time he is willing. At the same time I don't want to force myself upon her before she really is strong enough to stand it. You understand?"
"Oh, yes, indeed. I'll explain it all to her, and then she can say herself when she wants you to come."
"Are you allowed to go in to see her?" asked Lyon in surprise.
"Every evening. She likes to have me rub her head and put her to sleep."
"Oh, that's very fortunate. I thought no one was allowed to go in at all."
"No one else is. No one even goes into those halls, and we mustn't laugh or talk so that she can hear it. But the first evening when we came back after vacation, I naturally wanted to know who it was in those rooms and why she was shut up with a trained nurse and why we had to keep so specially quiet for her, so I just waited around till the nurse went down to get her supper and then I slipped in. The door wasn't locked, so it was perfectly easy. And there I found the most perfectly beautiful woman I ever saw outside of a book. You can't think how fascinated I was. I knew it was good for my education to see a lot of her, because she had such lovely manners, and I was wild to think they would come and order me out and make a rule that I must never go In again, so I just made myself as interesting to her as I possibly could. I had to hurry a lot because there wasn't much time. The nurse was liable to come back any moment."