er
late.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten--. It feels as
if the blood would burst the veins--I cannot write.

She came after all, only ten minutes beyond her usual time, but they
seemed an eternity when I heard the ring and Burton's slow step. I could
have bounded from my chair to open the door myself.--It was a telegram!
How this always happens when one is expecting anyone with desperate
anxiety--A telegram from Suzette.

"I shall return to-night, _Mon Chou_."

Her cabbage!--_Bah!_ I never want to see her again--.

Miss Sharp must have entered when the door was opened for the telegram,
for I had begun to feel pretty low again when I heard her knock at the
door of the sitting-room.

She came in and up to my chair as usual--but she did not say her
accustomary cold good morning. I looked up--the horn spectacles were
over her eyes again, and the rest of her face was very pale--while there
was something haughty in the carriage of her small head, it seemed to
me. Her eternal pad and pencil were in her little thin, red hands.

"Good morning"--I said tentatively, she made a slight inclination as
much as to say--"I recognize you have spoken," then she waited for me to
continue.

I felt an egregious ass, I knew I was nervous as a bird, I could not
think of anything to say--I, Nicholas Thormonde, accustomed to any old
thing! nervous of a little secretary!

"Er--would you read me aloud the last chapter we finished"--I barked at
last lamely.

She turned to fetch the script from the other room--.

I must apologize to her, I knew.

She came back and sat down stiffly, prepared to begin.

"I am sorry I was such an uncouth brute yesterday," I said--"It was good
of you to come back--. Will you forgive me?"

She bowed again. I almost hated her at that moment, she was making me
feel so much--A foolish arrogance rose in me--

"We had better get to work I suppose," I went on pettishly.

She began to read--how soft her voice is, and how perfectly
cultivated.--Her family must be very refined gentlefolk--ordinary
English typists have not that indescribable distinction of tone.

What voices mean to one!--The delight of that exquisite sound of
refinement in the pronunciation. Miss Sharp never misplaces an
inflection or slurs a word, she never uses slang, and yet there is
nothing pedantic in her selection of language--it is just as if her
habitual associates were all of the same class as herself, and