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"She seems to be memorizing me," thought Charmian, wondering who Miss Gretch was, and how she came to be there. "Stay here just a minute, will you?" said Susan Fleet. "Adelaide wants me, I see. I'll be back directly." "Please be sure to come. I want to talk to you," said Charmian. As Susan Fleet was going she murmured: "Miss Gretch writes for papers."
Miss Gretch, who was drinking claret cup, and eating little rolls which contained hidden treasure of pâté de foie gras, bowed and smiled with anxious intensity, then abruptly became unnaturally grave, and gazed with a sort of piercing attention at Charmian's hair, jewels, gown, fan, and shoes.
Miss Gretch is certainly a very inefficient journalist. Elgar! Delius too! I wonder she didn't compare me with Scriabine while she was about it. How hateful it is being made a laughing-stock like this." "Oh, nobody reads those papers, I expect. Still, Miss Gretch " "Gretch! What a name!" said Claude.
She found her at length standing before a buffet, and entertaining a very thin and angular woman, dressed in black, with scarlet flowers growing out of her toilet in various unexpected places. Miss Fleet welcomed Charmian with her usual unimpassioned directness, and introduced her quietly to Miss Gretch, as her companion was called, surprisingly.
"At Adelaide Shiffney's the other night Susan Fleet introduced me to a Miss Gretch. I believe she sometimes writes, for papers or something. I had a little talk with her while I was waiting for Susan to come back." "Did you tell her about the studio?" "Let me see! Did I? Yes, I believe I did say something. You see, Claude, it was the night of " "I know it was. But how could you ?"
Claude stopped, and with an abrupt movement tore the cuttings to pieces and threw them on the carpet. "What can it mean? Who on earth ? Charmian, do you know anything of this?" "Oh," she said, with a sort of earnest disgust, mingled with surprise, "it must be that dreadful Miss Gretch!" "Dreadful Miss Gretch! I never heard of her. Who is she?"
"How could I suppose things said in a private conversation would ever appear in print? I only said that you had a studio because you composed and wanted quiet, and that I had been picking up a few old things to make it look homey. How extraordinary of Miss Gretch!" "It has made me look very ridiculous. I am quite unknown, and therefore it is impossible for the public to be interested in me.
"That dreadful Miss Gretch" had infected others with her disease of comment, and his name was fairly often in the papers. "Mr. and Mrs. Claude Heath are about to leave their charming and artistic house in Kensington and to take up their residence near Algiers. It is rumored that there is an interesting reason, not wholly unconnected with things operatic, for their departure, etc."
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