He stared at me with a sort of suspicion. '_Please_ don't tell me you think me like my sister,' he went on. 'For though, of course, every right-minded man feels--ur--a natural respect and affection for the members his family--bows, if I may so say, to the inscrutable decrees of Providence--which has mysteriously burdened him with them--still, there _are_ points about Lady Georgina which I cannot conscientiously assert I approve of.' I remembered 'Marmy's a fool,' and held my tongue judiciously. 'I do not resemble her, I hope,' he persisted, with a look which I could almost describe as wistful. 'A family likeness, perhaps,' I put in. 'Family likenesses exist, you know--often with complete divergence of tastes and character.' He looked relieved. 'That is true. Oh, how true! But the likeness in my case, I must admit, escapes me.' I temporised. 'Strangers see these things most,' I said, airing the stock platitudes. 'It may be superficial. And, of course, one knows that profound differences of intellect and moral feeling often occur within the limits of a single family.' 'You are quite right,' he said, with decision. 'Georgina's principles are not mine. Excuse my remarking it, but you seem to be a young lady of unusual penetration.' I saw he took my remark as a compliment. What I really meant to say was that a commonplace man might easily be brother to so clever a woman as Lady Georgina. [Illustration: HE BOWED TO US EACH SEPARATELY.] He gathered up his hat, his stick, his gloves, his notes, and his typewritten letters, one by one, and backed out politely. He was a punctilious millionaire. He had risen by urbanity to his brother directors, like a model guinea-pig. He bowed to us each separately as if we had been duchesses. As soon as he was gone, Elsie turned to me. 'Brownie, how on earth did you guess it? They're so awfully different!' 'Not at all,' I answered. 'A few surface unlikenesses only just mask an underlying identity. Their features are the same; but his are plump; hers, shrunken. Lady Georgina's expression is sharp and worldly; Mr. Ashurst's is smooth, and bland, and financial. And then their manner! Both are fussy; but Lady Georgina's is honest, open, ill-tempered fussiness; Mr. Ashurst's is concealed under an artificial mask of obsequious politeness. One's cantankerous; the other's only pernicketty. It's one tune, after all, in two different keys.' From that day forth, the Urbane Old Gentleman was a daily visitor. He took an hour at a time at first; but after a few days, the hour lengthened out (apologetically) to an entire morning. He 'presumed to ask' my Christian name the second day, and remembered my father--'a man of excellent principles.' But he didn't care for Elsie to work for him. Fortunately for her, other work dropped in, once we had found a client, or else, poor girl, she would have felt sadly slighted. I was glad she had something to do; the sense of dependence weighed heavily upon her.