“Yes, I am working hard. It is better that I should say ‘No.’

“Eve.”

Four days passed before Kate handed her another letter.

“Perhaps you are right, and I am wrong. If it is your wish that I should not see you, I bow to it with all reverence.

“Do not think that I do not understand.

“Some day, perhaps, you will come to see Lynette. Or I could bring her up to town and leave her at your friend’s for you to find her. I promise to lay no ambuscades. When you have gone I can call for her again.

“I should love her better because she had been near you.”

Kate Duveen was hard at work one evening, struggling, with the help of a dictionary, through a tough book on German philosophy, when the maid knocked at her door.

“What is it, Polly?”

The girl’s name was Ermentrude, but Kate persisted in calling her Polly.