Villiers bowed.  “Assuredly!”

“Thank you!  Because it is possible he may have different opinions to yours,—­in that case, if he writes me a line, fixing an appointment, I shall be very pleased to call again.  I will leave my card,—­and if Mr. Alwyn is a sensible man, he will certainly hold broader ideas on the subject of ‘interviewing’ than you appear to entertain.  You are quite sure I cannot see him?”

“Quite!”—­There was no mistake about the firm emphasis of this reply.

“Oh, very well!”—­here she opened the door, rattling the handle with rather an unnecessary violence,—­“I’m sorry to have taken up any of your time, Mr. Villiers.  Good-morning!”

“Good-morning!” ... returned Villiers calmly, touching the bell that his servant might be in readiness to show her out.  But the baffled “Tiger-Lily” was not altogether gone.  She looked back, her face wrinkling into one of those strangely unbecoming expressions of grim playfulness.

“I’ve half a mind to make an ‘At Home’ out of you!” she said, nodding at him energetically.  “Only you’re not important enough!”

Villiers burst out laughing.  He was not proof against this touch of humor, and on a sudden good-natured impulse, sprang to the door and shook hands with her.

“No, indeed, I am not!” he said, with a charming smile—­“Think of it!—­I haven’t even invented a new biscuit!  Come, let me see you into the hall,—­I’m really sorry if I’ve spoken roughly, but I assure you Alwyn’s not at all the sort of man you want for interviewing,—­he’s far too modest and noble-hearted.  Believe me!  —­I’m not romancing a bit—­I’m in earnest.  There are some few fine, manly, gifted fellows left in the world, who do their work for the love of the work alone, and not for the sake of notoriety, and he is one of them.  Now I’m not certain, if you were quite candid with me, you’d admit that you yourself don’t think much of the people who actually like to be interviewed?”

His amiable glance, his kindly manner, took the gaunt female by surprise, and threw her quite off her guard.  She laughed,—­a natural, unforced laugh in which there was not a trace of bitterness.  He was really a delightful young man, she thought, in spite of his old-fashioned, out-of-the-way notions!

“Well, perhaps I don’t!” she replied frankly—­“But you see it is not my business to think about them at all.  I simply ‘interview’ them,—­and I generally find they are very willing, and often eager, to tell me all about themselves, even to quite trifling and unnecessary details.  And, of course, each one thinks himself or herself the only or the chief ‘celebrity’ in London, or, for that matter, in the world.  I have always to tone down the egotistical part of it a little, especially with authors, for if I were to write out exactly what they separately say of their contemporaries, it would be simply frightful!  They would be all at daggers drawn in no time!  I assure you ‘interviewing’ is often a most delicate and difficult business!”