Henry nodded, and replied grudgingly: "I met him personally, not long after he had tricked me into giving him the news of the comet. I was acting as toastmaster at the annual banquet of the Colonial Lords of Manors, and he was reporting the dinner. He tried to be friendly, but I squelched him good and plenty."
"Oh, how interesting!" Pat enthused. "Tell me, please! Is he young and good-looking?"
Henry's head jerked up. He did some rapid thinking, and then he lied firmly: "He's an oldish person, fat and awkward, and almost bald."
Pat smiled faintly, and did not have much to say after that. I divined that her little bubble of romantic anticipation had been pricked, but as she had no suspicions then, and had accepted Henry's description of the reporter as truthful, I passed it up. Considering Henry's position at the moment, I could not very well cross purposes with him and enlighten her. I happened to have been present at the same banquet, and I could have offered her a vastly different picture of the reporter from the fraudulent one Henry had painted.
An uncomfortable silence followed. The Prince was looking at Pat quizzically. "Well, what about it?" he said suddenly.
"About what?" she replied.
"I should have thought you almost the last person in the world to become interested in a news writer," he said. "To me, the most repugnant of persons is a nosey newspaper reporter."
"Reporters are not repugnant to me," Pat replied quickly. "I've never met one in my life, so why should I feel any contempt for them?"
"Thanks," said the Prince. "That's what I wanted to know."
"Don't be a cad," Pat retorted. "There is no more harm in my knowing a reporter than in knowing you."