The clock, striking two, chimed in with my humble tap at the door of Mr. Waters’ private room. “Come in!” called the dreaded voice of our Governor. And, trembling inwardly, in I went. CHAPTER II THE PROPOSAL The large, light room, with its handsome furniture, seemed to stretch for miles between the door and the big writing-desk, covered with green leather, at which Mr. Waters himself sat, frowning over a letter. The desk was generally bare but for the note of his day’s appointments, with the hours, on the turnover date-ticket. “Two o’clock,” and a heavy “X” marked this coming interview, as I could not help seeing when I finished what seemed like a long and tiring walk over the thick crimson carpet, and stood meekly at his elbow. He looked up, alert, clean-shaven, his fair hair brushed as sleek and shiny as the nap of his own silk hat, his mouth closed as tightly as his own cash-box; he was the very picture of a successful young City man, whose one and only interest is his business. “Ah! That you, Miss Trant?” he said, in the quick, curt, business-like voice that Miss Robinson can imitate so perfectly. He wheeled round in the chair to face me. “Sit down, please.” I was thankful to sit down. Although I don’t think my panic showed in my face, my knees were actually beginning to give under me. Mr. Waters pointed to a plump, green morocco-covered chair. Down I sat, on the very edge of it. I set my teeth to listen to what this office tyrant had to say. (How extraordinary that he and Sydney Vandeleur should _both_ be “men”!) If he only wouldn’t keep me; if he’d only just tell me to go, and get it over.... But his first remark took me absolutely by surprise. “Now, Miss Trant. If you don’t mind, I want to ask you a few questions. Don’t think them impertinent, for they are not so intended, and they are necessary to the matter in hand. And—please don’t misunderstand them.” Here his alert face grew even more business-like. His keen grey eyes met my startled brown ones steadily for a moment. Then he added, in an emphatic, “_underlined_” sort of tone: “There is nothing in these questions to which your father, or anyone belonging to you, could take any exception. You understand?” “Understand”—No! I certainly didn’t. What could he mean me to understand? I hadn’t grasped it even when he repeated the question a trifle impatiently. “You do understand that, Miss Trant?” “Oh—er—yes—of course,” I murmured, in duty bound. But I was so utterly dazed by this unlooked-for flight-off-at-a-tangent of the Governor’s that I heard myself answering as if in a dream the questions he put next. “Twenty-one. You’re of age, then,” I heard him saying through the daze. “Both parents dead: m’m. No one else belonging to you?”