“I called,” she stammered, “to see Mr. Vance Gilder.”
“At your service,” he replied, bowing low.
“But really, sir, are you Mr. Gilder?”
“I believe,” he replied, “that I enjoy the doubtful honor of that appellation.”
The half-hesitation of the visitor as she stood in the open door might have suggested momentary confusion, but reassurance seemed to assert itself as she complied with the melodious invitation of Vance Gilder to enter and be seated.
This vision of loveliness that entered the bachelor apartments of Vance Gilder might have been eighteen years old, but certainly no more. In stature she was of medium height, rather slender, and sustained herself "It must be,” she faltered, with increasing embarrassment, “all a mistake.”
Vance Gilder, with all his boasted matter-of-fact principles, was wonderfully interested in his fair visitor. She evidently was a stranger in the city, or a skilled actress. In referring to her afterwards, he spoke of her as a “dream of loveliness.”