Visitor. If you please.
(Mrs. Sherman goes upstairs and returns presently with a choice of photographs.)
Visitor. They are both exquisite. I choose this one for my article, and, if you don't object, I should like so much to keep the other for myself as a memento of this delightful interview. May I, dear lady?
Mrs. Sherman. If you wish it.
Visitor. Thank you. And there is one thing more. Please write your name on both. An autograph adds so much to the value of a photograph whether it be for the public eye or the album of a friend.
Mrs. Sherman (resignedly). What shall I write?
Visitor. Oh, anything. "Yours faithfully," or "Very cordially yours," are very popular just at present. Thank you so much. And I do hope to meet you soon again. If I should happen to give a little tea at my rooms for Mr. Hartney Collier, the actor, later in the winter, I shall take the liberty of sending you a card. You would like him so much. And now, goodby, dear lady. Exit.
I have given this conversation without the various comments and interjections made either by myself or Josephine during the course of it. To have set them forth would merely have served to mar the sequence of the dialogue. After announcing the departure of the visitor, there was a little pause and my wife regarded me almost pathetically.
"Poor thing!" she murmured, brushing away the semblance of a tear with her pocket-handkerchief. "I am sorry for her. I can understand just how it happened."
"For which of the two are you sorry?" I asked.