The famous Secretary sat at her desk in the well-kept sitting-room. She
sat in the midst of documents and letters; large white sheets of her
Education League writing-paper lay before her, the topmost sheet nearly
filled with her neat chirography. Oblivious to small happenings in the
world without, the Secretary was deep in her distinguished
correspondence. But her desk, as it happened, stood in the window, and
the Secretary, after all, was not so immersed in her affairs but that
she looked out into the Park now and then, sometimes for whole minutes
together. She looked, too, into the quiet street before the house. And
so it was that her eyes, in time, fell upon the familiar figure of
Charles Garrott; striding all at once into her range, turning swiftly in
at her door, vanishing again into her vestibule, scarcely five feet from
where she sat.
Though thus aware that she was about to have a caller, Mary did not at
once spring up to go and welcome him. She sat, entirely motionless, her
permanently questioning gaze fixed on the spot where the caller had
passed from view. The ringing of the bell scarcely seemed to penetrate
her consciousness. But then, in a moment, she dropped her pen quickly,
and rose. Standing, she locked her two hands together before her, very
tight, released them again, passed out into the hall, and opened her
front door.
"Good-afternoon! This is an unexpected pleasure," said she, in her
natural voice, or very near it. "Come in!--or can you?"
Her visitor looked full at her from the vestibule, unsmiling.
"Oh, certainly--if you're not too busy! It's what I am here for. How do
you do to-day?"
"That's nice! You don't often honor us, and--I feared you had merely
stopped to leave that package."
"Ah, yes!--the package! Some things Donald got for you--I suppose you
know? He asked me--"
"Oh! I'm afraid that was very much of an imposition--and I was really in
no hurry for them at all."
She thanked him, relieved him of the pretextual box, laid it on the hall
table, and, with inevitable but extreme infelicity, continued:--
"You saw Donald to-day, then?"