“Two o’clock,” and a heavy “X” marked this coming interview, as I could not help seeing when I finished what seemed like a long and tiring walk over the thick crimson carpet, and stood meekly at his elbow.

He looked up, alert, clean-shaven, his fair hair brushed as sleek and shiny as the nap of his own silk hat, his mouth closed as tightly as his own cash-box; he was the very picture of a successful young City man, whose one and only interest is his business.

“Ah! That you, Miss Trant?” he said, in the quick, curt, business-like voice that Miss Robinson can imitate so perfectly.

[13]

[13]

He wheeled round in the chair to face me.

“Sit down, please.”

I was thankful to sit down. Although I don’t think my panic showed in my face, my knees were actually beginning to give under me. Mr. Waters pointed to a plump, green morocco-covered chair. Down I sat, on the very edge of it. I set my teeth to listen to what this office tyrant had to say.

(How extraordinary that he and Sydney Vandeleur should both be “men”!)

If he only wouldn’t keep me; if he’d only just tell me to go, and get it over....

But his first remark took me absolutely by surprise.

“Now, Miss Trant. If you don’t mind, I want to ask you a few questions. Don’t think them impertinent, for they are not so intended, and they are necessary to the matter in hand. And—please don’t misunderstand them.”

Here his alert face grew even more business-like. His keen grey eyes met my startled brown ones steadily for a moment. Then he added, in an emphatic, “underlined” sort of tone:

“There is nothing in these questions to which your father, or anyone belonging to you, could take any exception. You understand?”

“Understand”—No! I certainly didn’t. What could he mean me to understand? I[14] hadn’t grasped it even when he repeated the question a trifle impatiently.

[14]

“You do understand that, Miss Trant?”

 Prev. P 10/226 next