s
career would have been taken.

And here he was . . . no, it was too terrible, what could be more
terrible? Only a towel on, water running off his legs, and that
exclamation. He knew at once the lady was Lady Caroline--the minute
the exclamation was out he knew it. Rarely did Mr. Wilkins use that
word, and never, never in the presence of a lady or a client. While as
for the towel--why had he come? Why had he not stayed in Hampstead?
It would be impossible to live this down.

But Mr. Wilkins was reckoning without Scrap. She, indeed,
screwed up her face at the first flash of him on her astonished sight
in an enormous effort not to laugh, and having choked the laughter down
and got her face serious again, she said as composedly as if he had had
all his clothes on, "How do you do."

What perfect tact. Mr. Wilkins could have worshipped her. This
exquisite ignoring. Blue blood, of course, coming out.

Overwhelmed with gratitude he took her offered hand and said "How
do you do," in his turn, and merely to repeat the ordinary words seemed
magically to restore the situation to the normal. Indeed, he was so
much relieved, and it was so natural to be shaking hands, to be
conventionally greeting, that he forgot he had only a towel on and his
professional manner came back to him. He forgot what he was looking
like, but he did not forget that this was Lady Caroline Dester, the
lady he had come all the way to Italy to see, and he did not forget
that it was in her face, her lovely and important face, that he had
flung his terrible exclamation. He must at once entreat her
forgiveness. To say such a word to a lady--to any lady, but of all
ladies to just this one . . .

"I'm afraid I used unpardonable language," began Mr. Wilkins very
earnestly, as earnestly and ceremoniously as if he had had his clothes
on.

"I thought it most appropriate," said Scrap, who was used to
damns.

Mr. Wilkins was incredibly relieved and soothed by this answer.
No offence, then, taken. Blue blood again. Only blue blood could
afford such a liberal, such an understanding attitude.

"It is Lady Caroline Dester, is it not, to whom I am speaking?"
he asked, his voice sounding even more carefully cultivated than usual,
for he had to restrain too much pleasure, too much relief, too much of
the joy of the pardoned and the shriven from getting into it.

"Yes," said Scrap; and for the life of her she couldn't help
smiling. She couldn't help