Elfrida bit her lip. "Of course I am not any of those."
"Miss Bell has done some idyllic verse," volunteered
Golightly.
The girl looked at him with serious reprobation. "I did not give you permission to say that," she said gravely.
"No—forgive me!—but it's true, Rattray." He searched in his breast pocket and brought out a diminutive pocket-book. "May I show those two little things I copied?" he begged, selecting a folded sheet of letter-paper from its contents. "This is serious, you know, really. We must go into all the chances."
Elfrida had a pang of physical distress.
"Oh," she said hastily, "Mr. Rattray will not care to see those. They weren't written for the Age, you know," she added, forcing a smile.
But Rattray declared that he should like it above all things, and looked the scraps gloomily over. One Elfrida had called "A Street Minstrel." Seeing him unresponsive, Golightly read it gracefully aloud.
"One late November afternoon
I sudden heard a gentle rune.
"I could not see whence came the song,
But, tranced, stopped and listened long;
"And that drear month gave place to May,
And all the city slipped away.