“Now as to your making a start in business. I suspect that my affairs are in a very bad shape. Things were left to my brother, as he told you. I have a lot of papers, all kinds of accounts, which he has brought to me and he's bringing me a great many more. I can't make head or tail of them, and I think my brother is about as much befuddled as I am. I believe only an expert can understand them. Mr. Hunt says you have a very keen mind for such matters. I wish you'd take charge of these papers, and try to straighten them out.” “Miss Sherwood,” Larry said slowly, “you know my record and yet you risk trusting me with your affairs?” “Not that I wouldn't take the risk--but whatever there is to steal, some one else has already stolen it, or will steal it. Your work will be to discover thefts or mistakes, and to prevent thefts or mistakes if you can. You see I am not placing any actual control over stealable property in you--not yet.... Well, what do you say?” “I can only say, Miss Sherwood, that you are more than good, and that I am more than grateful, and that I shall do my best!” Miss Sherwood regarded him thoughtfully for a long space. Then she said: “I am going to place something further in your hands, for if you are as clever as I think you are, and if life has taught you as much as I think it has, I believe you can help me a lot. My brother Dick is wild and reckless. I wish you'd look out for him and try to hold him in check where you can. That is, if this isn't placing too great a duty on you.” “That's not a duty--it's a compliment!” “Then that will be all for the present. I'll see you again in an hour or two, when I shall have some things ready to turn over to you.” Back in his bedroom Larry walked exultantly to and fro. He had security! And at last he had a chance--perhaps the chance he had been yearning for through which he was ultimately to prove himself a success!... He wondered yet more about Miss Sherwood. And again about her and Hunt. Miss Sherwood was clever, gracious, everything a man could want in a woman; and he guessed that behind her humorous references to Hunt there was a deep feeling for the big painter who was living almost like a tramp in the attic of the Duchess's little house. And Larry knew Miss Sherwood was the only woman in Hunt's life; Hunt had said as much. They were everything to each other; they trusted each other. Yet there was some wide breach between the two; evidently his own crisis had forced the only communication which had passed between the two for months. He wondered what that breach could be, and what had been its cause. And then an idea began to open its possibilities. What a splendid return, if, somehow, he could do something that would help bring together these two persons who had befriended him!...