“But I don’t like to let him know my exact name. Suppose I put my initials only? The less you are known the more you are thought of.”
“Yes; you might do that.”
Elfride set to work there and then. Her one desire for the last fortnight seemed likely to be realized. As happens with sensitive and secluded minds, a continual dwelling upon the subject had magnified to colossal proportions the space she assumed herself to occupy or to have occupied in the occult critic’s mind. At noon and at night she had been pestering herself with endeavours to perceive more distinctly his conception of her as a woman apart from an author: whether he really despised her; whether he thought more or less of her than of ordinary young women who never ventured into the fire of criticism at all. Now she would have the satisfaction of feeling that at any rate he knew her true intent in crossing his path, and annoying him so by her performance, and be taught perhaps to despise it a little less.
Four days later an envelope, directed to Miss Swancourt in a strange hand, made its appearance from the post-bag.
“Oh,” said Elfride, her heart sinking within her. “Can it be from that man—a lecture for impertinence? And actually one for Mrs. Swancourt in the same hand-writing!” She feared to open hers. “Yet how can he know my name? No; it is somebody else.”
“Nonsense!” said her father grimly. “You sent your initials, and the Directory was available. Though he wouldn’t have taken the trouble to look there unless he had been thoroughly savage with you. I thought you wrote with rather more asperity than simple literary discussion required.” This timely clause was introduced to save the character of the vicar’s judgment under any issue of affairs.
“Well, here I go,” said Elfride, desperately tearing open the seal.
“To be sure, of course,” exclaimed Mrs. Swancourt; and looking up from her own letter. “Christopher, I quite forgot to tell you, when I mentioned that I had seen my distant relative, Harry Knight, that I invited him here for whatever length of time he could spare. And now he says he can come any day in August.”
“Write, and say the first of the month,” replied the indiscriminate vicar.
She read on, “Goodness me—and that isn’t all. He is actually the reviewer of Elfride’s book. How absurd, to be sure! I had no idea he reviewed novels or had anything to do with the PRESENT. He is a barrister—and I thought he only wrote in the Quarterlies. Why, Elfride, you have brought about an odd entanglement! What does he say to you?”