She was still brooding on it when the postman arrived with the evening mail, and the maid brought the letters into the drawing-room.
Jane sorted them out. There were three for William, which she gave to the maid to take to him in his den. There were two for herself, both bills. And there was one for Anastatia, in the well-remembered handwriting of Rodney Spelvin.
Jane placed this letter on the mantel-piece, and stood looking at it like a cat at a canary. Anastatia was away for the day, visiting friends who lived a few stations down the line; and every womanly instinct in Jane urged her to get hold of a kettle and steam the gum off the envelope. She had almost made up her mind to disembowel the thing and write “Opened in error” on it, when the telephone suddenly went off like a bomb and nearly startled her into a decline. Coming at that moment it sounded like the Voice of Conscience.
“Hullo?” said Jane.
“Hullo!” replied a voice.
Jane clucked like a hen with uncontrollable emotion. It was Rodney.
“Is that you?” asked Rodney
“Yes,” said Jane.
And so it was, she told herself.
“Your voice is like music,” said Rodney.