chintz curtains.) She was going to take them _now_.

She had her hand on the door. She was eager, like a child that has got
off at last, after irritating delay.

I closed the door against her precipitate flight. I said I thought we
could settle that here, over the telephone.

And I settled it.

Having settled it, I sent Pavitt, my man, to get rooms for her that
afternoon in Hampstead, with his sister-in-law, in a house overlooking
the Heath. I said I couldn't promise her chintz curtains and a green door
and an orange Angora cat with green eyes, but I thought she would be
fairly comfortable with Mrs. Pavitt.

She was.

She told me a week later that the Hampstead rooms _had_ chintz curtains
and there was a Persian kitten too. A blue Persian, with yellow eyes.

There was. But I didn't tell her who put them there.

The kitten alone (it was a pure-bred Persian) cost me three guineas; and
to this day she thinks that Pavitt, who brought it to her, found it on
the Heath.

Yet, with all my precautions, there was trouble when Canterbury heard
about my typist. (She had become my typist, though I had never said a
word about engaging her.)