Upon reaching his office, Teddy Drake sat down to write to Frank Maynard.
“MY DEAR FRANK, “I am delighted at hearing that you are smitten by the archer boy (isn't that the delicate way of putting it?) and especially that the person by whom you are so smitten is my cousin Katie. By the way, according to that way of putting it, Katie would be the archer boy, which is absurd. So my metaphor is wrong somewhere, but after reading it over several times, I can't for the life of me see where. However you see what I mean, and Katie and the archer boy have both somehow had to do with the business, but they've got mixed up together till I can't tell which is which. Seriously I am awfully glad, Frank. To think of your falling in love with Katie! I never dreamt of such a thing, and the elders are equally surprised. Now that you have told me about it, I fancy that Sarah may have had some suspicion that there was a weakness somewhere, for sometimes when your name has been mentioned, she has been rather inclined to chaff Katie, which Katie has resented very seriously. My father sends word that he shall be very glad if you will come down and stay with us again, and named next Tuesday. Come by the ten o'clock train in the morning, it gets here at three. I will meet you at the station. I have read as much of your letter as was necessary to the elders, and they as well as myself are pleased at the thought of you and Katie coming together. We shall strictly obey your injunction, and say nothing to the girls about the object of your coming. Indeed we shall not say you are coming at all, for I was too surprised when I got your letter to invent any excuse at the time, and if I were to say anything about it now, they would think it was odd I did not mention it at the time, and would suspect something was up. If, however, you would rather not take them by surprise, write a line by return of post, and then I will say that you have written to say you are coming for a few days, on your way, say to Ireland. On reading over this letter I find it is barely coherent, but I dare say you will understand it.
Katie O'Byrne had thought more often during these two months of Frank Maynard than was at all satisfactory to herself. She had so repeatedly asserted that she did not like him, that her assurances lost power even with herself. At last, however, she could no longer shut her eyes to the fact, but was forced to own that she had been deceiving herself all along, and that she did like, yes, like Frank Maynard very much. It was with deep mortification that Katie made this confession even to herself, because, in spite of what Sarah had said, she did not believe that Frank had ever thought of her, and because he had so teazed and made fun of her, that she told herself she ought to hate him. Still when she thought over that sentence about the sea, and the quiet tone in which he had said, “Yes, Katie, you will believe me some day,” the colour would mount up into her cheeks, and she would think that perhaps after all he did care for her. But although Miss O'Byrne came at last to own to herself that she had been wrong, and that she liked Frank Maynard very, very much, she was by no means disposed to make the same concession to Sarah. So, whenever her cousin turned the conversation to the subject, said how she missed Frank, and wondered whether he would ever come again, Katie manifested such perfect indifference upon both points, that Sarah at last came to the conclusion that she had made a mistake, and that there was no chance of her ever winning the gloves.