"What I've given you? what have I given you?" "A kiss; I never shall forget you kissed me as long as I live." "Eustace, you are--you are a queer boy!" She went out, all blushes. When she had gone Mr. Gibb did what his employer had done; he stared at the door through which she had passed. "Well, I call this of the nature of a startler; she must have knocked him. His jobbing secretary! What's he going to find for her to do, when there's nothing for him to do? or, for the matter of that, for me either. And two guineas a week! When the other day he sent me out to change his last fiver, and told me he'd have to make it do till quarter day, and there's still three weeks to that. Looks to me as if he'd rather overdone it." The door of Mr. Hooper's room was opened; his voice was heard. "Mr. Gibb, come in here!" Mr. Gibb went in there. CHAPTER XXII MASTER AND MAN When Mr. Gibb entered he found Mr. Hooper in a state of agitation; there was nothing very amazing in that, as he had found him in that condition on previous occasions; but it seemed to Mr. Gibb that, in his agitation then, there was a quality which was new. Mr. Hooper assailed him the moment he was past the door. "Now, Mr. Gibb, you have been and gone and done it." "Done what, sir?" "I think it's extremely possible that you've laid yourself open to an indictment for conspiracy." "Have I, sir?" "You brought Miss Lindsay here?" "Excuse me, sir, but if you'll remember you told me to ask her to come." "You put me up to it." "I merely happened to mention that she was looking for something to do, and so she is." "No she isn't." "Isn't she, sir?" "No, she's found it! And that's where I'm in a position to prove conspiracy. Mr. Gibb, do you mean to tell me that Miss Lindsay has been pawning her things?" "I hope you won't let it go any further, sir." "Do you think I'm---- What do you think I am?" "I haven't thought, sir; only it happened to come to my knowledge, and it seemed to me to be a sad thing for her to have to do." "All I can say is that she hasn't pawned all her things." "No, sir, but she soon would have done." "Have you any idea of how much that dress cost which she had on? to say nothing of the hat!" "Not exactly, sir, I haven't; but my sister told me that some of her things must have cost a good bit of money." "That dress cost every penny of five-and-twenty or thirty pounds, and I dare say the hat cost another tenner; and she's been walking about in those kind of things her whole life long, I'm sure of it." "I told you, sir, she was a lady born and bred." "Mr. Gibb, you see advertisements for a lady, as barmaid; when I think of that I don't want to think of Miss Lindsay as a lady; she's on a different plane; she's of heaven, not of earth." "I told you, sir, she was high as the heavens above me."