"You don't want to put me to any inconvenience!" She got up from her chair with something in her way of doing it which frightened him. "But I don't want you to study my convenience; in the future it will be my duty to study yours; please understand that, before all else, I wish to do my duty. I want to do a man's work and to earn a man's wage--to deserve a man's wage. Of course I know I shan't deserve it at first; but I'm going to try hard, and if you'll only give me a chance, and treat me as if I were a man, I think you'll admit that I do deserve it before very long. I know that being a woman is against me----" "Really, Miss Lindsay, I can't admit that." "But I know it is--I learnt that long ago; and only when I have succeeded in making you forget that I am a woman shall I know that I am beginning to earn my wage--as a man. Then I am to come to-morrow with Eustace, at ten." "With Eustace? Oh yes; quite so--that is--certainly; that will suit me very well." She went out of the room without another word; he stood staring at the door through which she had passed. "This is uncommonly awkward; ought I to have opened the door for her or not? It wouldn't have been treating her like a man, and she might have resented it. She has a way of speaking, to say nothing of looking, which takes the stiffening right out of me. I'd have given anything to have dared to ask her to lunch; but--if I had dared, anything might have happened. One thing's certain, I've been and gone and done it. I've given myself two problems to solve; one thing is, what am I to find for her to do?--for even a jobbing secretary must do something, especially when she's full of enthusiasm to the bursting-point. And the other is, how I am going to find the cash to pay her for doing it; I'll be hanged if I know which of the problems is likely to prove the most insoluble." When Nora reached the office Mr. Gibb assailed her with questions; her answers seeming to amaze him in an ascending scale. "Well, what did he say to you?" "He's engaged me." "Engaged you? What for?" "As jobbing secretary." "As what?" "As jobbing secretary." "Who to?" "Why, to himself, of course." "He's engaged you as jobbing secretary to himself? What are you going to do?" "How can I tell? I suppose he has something very important which he wants me to do." "Has he? Oh! When are you going to start on it?" "To-morrow!" "To-morrow? What's he going to pay you?" "Two guineas a week; isn't it splendid?" The announcement seemed to startle Mr. Gibb out of the faculty of asking further questions. She went on. "And I have to thank you for it! Only think! if it hadn't been for you such luck never would have come my way; you dear, dear boy! I should like to kiss you for it; and I will!" And she did, quite heartily too, though she had to stoop to do it. "And out of my first two guineas I'll buy you something; what shall it be?" "Nothing you could buy could ever equal what you've given me."