England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Love stories; Social classes -- England -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Katherine Bush rose while he went to get it out for himself--he was not
her employer, and she did not yet know where things were kept, so she
did not offer to help him. He was in evening dress, and his hair was as
well groomed as Lord Algy's, but not cut quite so short, and it was
brushed straight back from his forehead and was brown and thick. His
face was tired and humorous and very distinguished, but for the moment
he looked cross and impatient. The paper was evidently not where he had
thought that it would be.
"Confound it!" he muttered, almost inaudibly, and then aloud, "I am in a
great hurry. Will you please look in those cupboards while I look in
these?"
Katherine Bush did as she was asked, and chanced upon the paper
immediately. She handed it to him without a word. She noticed that he
hardly looked at her, and did not take in her personality at all. She
was just his aunt's new secretary and typist; and more important matters
pressed.
"Thanks, awfully;" then he glanced at the table, where the typing
machine used by Miss Arnott stood. "Oh!--er--I was wondering if you
would be so awfully kind as to type this when I have written it; it is a
letter I must send to the _Times_, and I shall have to go in to dinner
in a minute.'
"I have not seen how this machine works yet," Katherine Bush answered,
"but if you care to dictate, I can take it down in shorthand and then
write it out very quickly afterwards."
"That is most kind of you--will you come into the library then?--my
notes are there."
She followed him silently, and when he had found some scribbled words
written on the back of an envelope, he went to the hearth-rug, and,
leaning against the mantelpiece, began to speak. Katherine had taken up
a block and pencil and was waiting ready.
He was not coherent at first; he had neither Mr. Livingstone's precise,
oily slowness, nor Mr. Devereux's crisp fluency. She took down exactly
what he had said. Then he asked her to read it aloud.
"That is frightful English!" he exclaimed, impatiently. "I never can
dictate properly, I must always write myself or my ideas do not flow."
"If the substance is all right and it is just the English you want
regulated, I can do that when I copy it out."
He looked at her in doubt, and Katherine smiled to herself--this
flattered her.
"It would be awfully kind of you if you would, though," he went on,
hesitatingly. "I have kept them waiting a quarter of an hour as it is.
Could you do it immediately and send it in to the dining-room by one of
the footmen? I have my fountain-pen with me, I will sign it there. It is
to be addressed to the Editor of the _Times_."
"Yes, I will."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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