The clerk scribbled a line or two on a scrap of paper and passed it across to her. She untwisted it and read: ‘_This is the chap that did that tremendous exploration in the North of Asia: a real live lord, you know._’ She scribbled an answering line: ‘_Of course I know--do you think I didn’t recognise the name?_’ and passed it over with a show of indignation. The clerk indited another epistle: ‘_Don’t look as if he’d seen much of anything, does he?_’ The girl perused this, scribbled back: ‘_His eyes and moustache are real jam!_’ and fell to work at her machine again. The clerk sighed, caressed a few sprouts on his top-lip, and remarking to his own soul that these toffs always catch the girls’ eyes, fell to doing nothing in a practised way. Viscount Saxonstowe, quite unconscious of the interest he was exciting, stared about him after a time and began to wonder if the two young people at the desk usually worked with closed windows. The atmosphere was heavy, and there was a concentrated smell of paper, and ink, and paste. He thought of the wind-swept plains and steppes on which he had spent long months--he had gone through some stiff experiences there, but he confessed to himself that he would prefer a bitter cold night in winter in similar solitudes to a summer’s day in that ante-room. His own healthy tan and the clearness of his eyes, his alert look and the easy swing with which he walked, would never have been developed amidst such surroundings, and the consciousness of his own rude health made him feel sorry for the two white slaves before him. He felt that if he could have his own way he would cut the young gentleman’s hair, put him into a flannel shirt and trot him round; as for the young lady, he would certainly send her into the country for a holiday. And while he thus indulged his fancies a door opened and he heard voices, and two men stepped into the ante-room.