She laughed doubtfully.
"Would you rather I went away?" I asked politely.
"I? Why, no—I mean that you may do as you please—except please do not walk on the beach."
"Then I do not alarm you by my presence?" I inquired. My clothes were a bit ancient. I wore them shooting, sometimes. "My family is respectable," I added; and I told her my name.
"Oh! Then you wrote 'Culled Cowslips' and 'Faded Fig-Leaves,' and you imitate Maeterlinck, and you—— Oh, I know lots of people that you know;" she cried with every symptom of relief; "and you know my brother."
"I am the author," said I coldly, "of 'Culled Cowslips,' but 'Faded Fig-Leaves' was an earlier work, which I no longer recognise, and I should be grateful to you if you would be kind enough to deny that I ever imitated Maeterlinck. Possibly," I added, "he imitates me."
"Now, do you know," she said, "I was afraid of you at first? Papa is digging in the salt meadows nearly a mile away."
It was hard to bear.
"Can you not see," said I, "that I am wearing a shooting coat?"
"I do see—now; but it is so—so old," she pleaded.