As Claire sat waiting for Mrs. Sherman, stray scraps of recollection, such as these, flitted through her mind and helped to while the time away. Then, as she still waited, she grew gradually more composed, less unfamiliar with her surroundings, and the strange predicament in which she found herself. She could, at length, look at the door she supposed led into Mrs. Sherman's room, without such a quick contraction of the heart as caused her breath to come in labored gasps, could make some sort of sketchy outline of the part she was foreordained to take in the coming interview, and not find herself barren of resource, even if Mrs. Sherman _should_ say so-and-so, instead of so-and-so. She had waited so long, had had such ample time to get herself well in hand, that when, at last, a door opened (not Mrs. Sherman's door at all, but another), and a tall, upright masculine figure appeared in the doorway, she at once jumped to the conclusion it was Shaw, the butler, come to summon her into _the presence,_ and rose to follow, without too much inner perturbation. "Mrs. Sherman is prevented from keeping her appointment with you this morning," descended to her from an altitude far above her own. "She hopes you will excuse her. She has asked me to talk with you in her stead. You are Miss Lang, I believe? I am Mrs. Sherman's brother. My name is Ronald." CHAPTER IX It is hard to readjust all one's prearranged plans in the twinkling of an eye. Claire felt as if she had received a sudden dash of cold water square in the face. She quite gulped from the shock of it. How in the world was she to adapt herself to this brand-new set of conditions on such short notice--on no notice at all? How was she to be anything but awkwardly monosyllabic? "Sit down, please." Obediently she sat. "Martha--Mrs. Slawson--tells me, your father was Judge Lang of Michigan?" "Yes--Grand Rapids." "You are a college graduate?" "Wellesley." "You have taught before?" "I tutored a girl throughout a whole summer. Prepared her for her college entrance exams." "She passed creditably?" "She wasn't conditioned in anything." "How are you on discipline?" "I don't know." "You have had no experience? Never tried your hand at training a boy, for example?" Claire's blue-gray eyes grew suddenly audacious, and the bridge of her short nose wrinkled up delightfully in a roguish smile. "I trained my father. He was a dear old boy--the dearest in the world. He used to say he had never been brought up, until I came along. He used to say I ruled him with a rod of iron. But he was very well-behaved before I got through with him. He was quite a model boy, really."