Hilda knocked the ash of her cigarette into her finger bowl and waited.
The pause grew so stiff with embarrassment that she broke it herself.
"And I regret to say it was I who introduced them," she said.
"Introduced whom?"
"Mr. Lindsay and Miss Laura Filbert of the Salvation Army. They met at
Number Three; she had come after my soul. I think she was disappointed,"
Hilda went on tranquilly, "because I would only lend it to her while she
was there."
"Of the Salvation Army! I can't imagine why you should regret it. He is
always grateful to be amused."
"Oh, there is no reason to doubt his gratitude. He is rather intense
about it. And--I don't know that my regret is precisely on Mr. Lindsay's
account. Did I say so?" They were simple, amiable words, and their
pertinence was far from insistent: but Alicia's crude blush--everything
else about her was perfectly worked out--cried aloud that it was too
sharp a pull up. "Perhaps, though," Hilda hurried on with a pang, "we
generalise too much about the men."
What Miss Livingstone would have found to say--she had certainly no
generalisation to offer about Duff Lindsay--had not a servant brought
her a card at that moment, is embarrassing to consider.
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