Chapter XII

WHAT it really came to, on the morrow, this first
time the time Kate went with her was that the
great man had, a little, to excuse himself; had, by a
rare accident for he kept his consulting-hours in
general rigorously free but ten minutes to give her;
ten mere minutes which he yet placed at her service
in a manner that she admired even more than she
could meet it: so crystal-clean the great empty cup
of attention that he set between them on the table.
He was presently to jump into his carriage, but he
promptly made the point that he must see her again,
see her within a day or two; and he named for her
at once another hour easing her off beautifully too
even then in respect to her possibly failing of justice
to her errand. The minutes affected her in fact as
ebbing more swiftly than her little army of items
could muster, and they would probably have gone
without her doing much more than secure another
hearing, had it not been for her sense, at the last,
that she had gained above all an impression. The
impression all the sharp growth of the final few
moments was neither more nor less than that she
might make, of a sudden, in quite another world,
another straight friend, and a friend who would

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