“There’s a gentleman downstairs, miss. ’E’s sent up ’is card. ’E wondered whether you’d see ’im.”
Kate glanced at the card and read, “James Canterton.”
She hesitated a moment.
“Yes, I will see him. Ask him up.”
Her hard, workaday self had risen as to a challenge. She felt an almost fierce eagerness to meet this man, to give him battle, and rout him with her truth-telling and sarcastic tongue. Canterton, as she imagined him, stood for all the old man-made sexual conveniences, and the social makeshift that she hated. He was the big, prejudiced male, grudging a corner of the working world to women, but ready enough to make use of them when his passions or his sentiments were stirred.
When he came into the room she did not rise from the table, but remained sitting there with her books before her.
“Miss Duveen?”
“Yes. Will you shut the door and sit down?”
She spoke with a rigid asperity, and he obeyed her, but without any sign of embarrassment or nervousness. There was just a subtle something that made her look at him more intently, more interestedly, as though he was not the sort of man she had expected to see.
“It is Mr. Canterton of Fernhill, is it not?”