"I am to be all alone?" His tone invited commiseration, while his brain soared with the dreams of a hashish-eater. "I think about three may be with you, not more," she said, letting him down to earth again. "Why are you so confident about me?" Her gentle gray eyes met his with friendly understanding. "When I found out who you were," she said, "I saw"--then she hesitated--"I saw that you had the rare gift of doing naturally what one would never expect." "In what way?" "To begin with, in coming here at all. And then you did things which, I imagine, no prince ever did before, and did them quite easily--'for fun,' I suppose you would say. Well, if you could do all that for fun, what might you not do when you became serious? A man who doesn't mind being laughed at--whatever his position--is very rare." "Ah!" cried Max, "but now you are giving me more credit than I deserve. You set me to do ridiculous things for you--ridiculous, I mean, in one dressed as I was for fashion and not for use--I was aware of it; but nobody was aware of me. When I come here into these poor streets, I am so unexpected that nobody recognizes me. If they thought that they did, they would not believe their eyes. In that alone there is a sense of enlargement and liberty which those who have not to live in our position can hardly realize. It was like holiday; I felt as though I had been let loose." "And so became more yourself?" "I cannot say; but I was happy while I was here. Why did you send me away?" "For the same reason that I now ask you to come back. I wanted you to be of use--independently." "Yet here I am dependent upon you again." "No; you have this in your own hands: it is your position." "That secures the chairmanship? But am I at all likely to be accepted?" "From what I hear, nobody suspects you of taking any great interest in the life of the poor. They have therefore no reason to be afraid of you." "I see," said Max. "As a figure-head chairman I might even be valuable." "Very, I have no doubt." "Part of the game?" "Royalty and Trade are supposed to be natural allies," remarked Sister Jenifer. Max was startled at her discernment. "Oh, but that is true!" he cried. "How wonderful, then, that you should be able to trust me at all." This set her smiling. "I had the advantage to begin with of not knowing who you were." "And that gave you a start." "No, finding you out gave me the start." "You certainly have not lost time." "That I cannot say, till I have your answer." There was no temporizing here. Max thought for a while, then drew breath and spoke. "I want you quite to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on faith--faith in you. Are you content that it should be so?" "For a beginning, yes."