"You said that you wanted perfectly clean copies, and you shall have perfectly clean copies; I quite understand that only perfectly clean copies will be of the slightest use. I hope you do not think that I wish you to put up with indifferent work. I merely wished to point out that I am afraid that I may be a little clumsy at first." She turned to go. "The--the typewriter's in the next room." "I saw it as I came in." "Pray--pray allow me to open the door for you." But she would not. "If you don't mind, sir"--the stress upon that "sir"!--"I would rather open it for myself; and I do hope that you won't allow a difference in sex to alter the relations which ought to exist between employer and employed. You wouldn't open the door for Eustace Gibb; I would like you to regard me in the same light as you do him." No, he certainly would not open the door for Eustace Gibb, but the idea of regarding her in the same light as Mr. Gibb was preposterous; the trouble was that he could only see her through a golden haze. The typewriter was in the next room to Mr. Hooper's, with beyond it the lobby which Mr. Gibb termed his office; the room was known to Mr. Gibb as the waiting-room, though no one had ever been known to wait in it. It was furnished with an old wooden table, and three older wooden chairs, and nothing else. On the table was the typewriter, and a plentiful supply of paper. After about an hour's interval, Mr. Hooper, who felt as if he were a prisoner in his own rooms, began to find himself in a state of fidgetiness which was beyond endurance. It was ridiculous to suppose that he did not dare to venture into the presence of his own jobbing secretary, yet--he did not dare. What was worse, he found himself incapable of smoking in the room next to her, and that in spite of her expressed desire that he should treat her as he treated Mr. Gibb. When the tension had reached a point at which he could stand it no longer, snatching up his hat, he burst into the room with an air of haste, seeming, when he was in it, to realize her presence there with a touch of surprise. "Miss Lindsay!--oh yes, yes, quite so. And--and how are we getting on?" The moment he had asked he saw that he had made another mistake. This time there was something on her face which moved him in a manner which really did surprise him. She looked as if she had at least been near to tears, and still was not far off. "I--I'm not getting on at all well," she said. "I've not the slightest doubt, Miss Lindsay, that you are getting on much better than you imagine." "I--I suppose I ought to know how I am getting on." "But your--yours is such a strenuously high standard." "I--I've spoilt I don't know how many sheets of paper." "What does it matter how many sheets of paper you spoil? The more you spoil the better I'll be pleased."