“I,—thank you! I don’t collect autographs, but I shall be—honoured to have yours. Miss Dundas can give you my address.”
“That’s quite all right. I’ll send it soon, with an appropriate quotation for your dear little album. ‘Be good, sweet maid, All lame dogs aid,’ With best wishes from Nellie’s Mother...”
She smirked once more. Katrine was breathlessly demanding of herself if this could indeed be the woman who had written such masterly books, when the girl who had been standing at a discreet distance during the short interview, came forward and spoke in an apologetic voice:—
“Mrs Singleton! I’m sorry, but father has an appointment to meet a friend in the rose garden, I’m afraid we must really move on.”
“Singleton... Incognito! The name she travels by, don’t you know,” naughty Grizel mumbled in explanation, as the little party turned away, but the truth burst upon Katrine in an all-illuminating flash, and she was not to be caught again.
“Grizel, you horror! To make me a laughing stock... What a fool she must have thought me, standing gaping with admiration! ‘Nellie’s Mother’ indeed! An idol toppled at that moment. I was disillusioned, but living in the same house with an author prepares one for so many eccentricities, that I still believed... Well! it came off very well that time, but don’t try it again!”
Grizel continued to chuckle in soft, retrospective enjoyment.
“Oh, it was grand! Mrs Singleton is a capital actress, and she played up like a man. It was delicious to see you standing there, all humility and adulation, such a douce, modest, young woman, burning incense to a master mind. If only that tiresome girl had not come up at the wrong moment, I might have faked all the wig bigs in turn, and had the time of my life!”
Katrine’s lips twisted in an enigmatical smile. She was feeling gay and young; the prickly dignity which had made her resent any approach to a joke at her own expense, had given place to a humorous enjoyment. Mentally she stood beside Grizel, looking on at the little scene which had just been enacted, appreciating the alertness of Mrs Singleton, and enjoying the spectacle of her own credulity.
Meantime each passing moment brought with it a fresh picture. Now it was a group of Chinamen, attired in the gorgeous colourings of the East, conversing with friendly cordiality with their black-coated friends; again it was a slender, dark-skinned woman, moving to the jingle of innumerable bangles, her timid eyes alight with childlike curiosity; anon, it was an ecclesiastic of the Church, or a group of court officials. The kaleidoscopic groups streamed in and out of the great house, passing each other on the marble staircase of the terrace, while the strains of massed bands sounded from a discreetly-arranged distance.