"Miss Lindsay has come, sir." As Mr. Gibb made this announcement Mr. Hooper looked up with a start, which was very well done, as if nothing could have surprised him more; he rose, a little doubtfully, as if the professional cares of this world were almost more than he could bear. "Miss Lindsay? Yes, yes, quite so; Miss Lindsay, of course. I hope, Miss Lindsay, I see you well." "Quite well, thank you." She ignored the hand which he extended, possibly in a moment of absence of mind, in a manner which seemed to him to be marked; he trusted Mr. Gibb had not noticed it before he left the room. He continued to be as professional in his manner as he knew how. "Miss Lindsay--eh--might I--eh--ask you to take a seat?" "Thank you, sir, I prefer to stand." Really this young woman was trying; she was reversing the positions; it was she who was keeping him at a distance, not he her; there was something in the way in which she said "sir" which made him wince; however, he was still professional. "Quite so, Miss Lindsay, quite so--whichever you prefer. Now, Miss Lindsay, here are some papers of a--of an abstract nature; privacy with regard to them is of the first importance; serious consequences might result were their character to become known outside these chambers." The jobbing secretary inclined her head; he thought she did it very gracefully. "Now, what I require are copies of these papers; you understand, copies--perfectly clean copies. How long do you think it will take you to let me have them?" "There seem to be a good many." "There are--oh, there are; quite a number; only they are not all of the same character. Now, for instance, how long will it take you to let me have a perfectly clean copy of that?" He held out what looked like a musty document, consisting of several foolscap pages, covered with close writing on both sides of each page. She turned it nervously over. "Is it--is it to be typed?" "Certainly; oh yes, emphatically." "What--what machine have you?" He mentioned the maker's name; fortunately it was on one of the same maker's machines she had learnt. "I told you that I had not used a machine recently; I fear, therefore, that I may be rather awkward at first, so that I can hardly tell how long it will take me to let you have a perfectly clean copy of this. There--there appears to be a good deal of it." "There does--oh yes, I admit it, there does--and of course I shouldn't want an absolutely clean copy." She looked at him; there was something in her look which caused him to look away, with some appearance of confusion; he realized that he had made a mistake. "By that I--I should wish you to understand that--that I shouldn't require you to destroy the entire document merely--merely because of one slight error." She spoke with what seemed to him to be magisterial severity; he felt that there was more than a touch of that severity in her demeanour.