“Was the young man I’m going to marry when we earn enough to support one another,” she said promptly. “But how the devil did you see us?” “S’sh!” said Mr. Reeder, shocked. “Strong--um--language is--um--most…” She was looking at him frowningly. “Sit down,” she said, and Mr. Reeder, who knew little of the rights of secretaries, but was quite sure that ordering their employers to sit down in their own offices was outside the table of privileges, sat down. “I like you, John or Jonas or whatever the ‘J’ stands for,” she said, with outrageous coolness. “I didn’t realize that you were a detective when I came to you. I’ve worked for successions of tired business men, who bucked up sufficiently towards evening to ask me out to supper, but never a detective. And you’re different from all the men I’ve ever met. You’ve never tried to hold my hand----” “I should hope not!” said Mr. Reeder, going very red. “I’m old enough to be your father!” “There isn’t such an age,” she said. And then, very seriously: “Would you speak to Tommy Anton if I brought him here?” “Tommy--you mean your--um----” “My ‘um’--that describes him,” she nodded. “He’s a wonderful fellow--terribly awkward and shy, and he’ll probably make a bad impression, as you do, but he’s a really nice man.” Now Mr. Reeder had been many things, but he had never acted _in loco parentis_, and the prospect was a trifle terrifying. “You wish me to ask him--er--what his intentions are?” She smiled at this, and she had a dazzling and beautiful smile. “My dear, I know what his intentions are, all right. You don’t meet a man day after day for over a year without finding out something about his private ideas. No--it is something else.” Mr. Reeder waited. “If you were an ordinary employer,” she went on, “you’d take me by the scruff of my neck and fire me.” Mr. Reeder disclaimed such a ferocious quality with a feeble shake of his head. “But you’re not.” She got up and walked to the window and looked out. What was she going to say? A most ghastly thought occurred to Mr. Reeder, one that made a cold shiver down his spine. But it was not that, for she turned suddenly. “Tommy has been robbed of twenty-three thousand pounds,” she said. He stared at her owlishly. “Robbed?” She nodded. “When?” “More than a year ago--before I met him. That is not why he is selling motor-cars on commission. He tries to sell them, but he isn’t very successful. His partner robbed him. They had a motor-car business. Tommy and this man Seafield were at Oxford together, and when they came down they started a motor-car agency. Tommy went to Germany to negotiate for an agency. When he came back Seafield had gone. He did not even leave a note--he just drew the money from the bank and went away.” She saw a new light in Mr. Reeder’s eyes and could not but marvel that what to him was so small a matter should be of such immediate interest. “And no message with his wife?… Unmarried, eh? H’m! He lived…”