One Sunday he went out of town, and on his return, rummaging among the papers on his desk, he missed “The Lifted Lamp,” which had been gathering dust there for half a year. What the deuce could have become of it? Betton spent a feverish hour in vainly increasing the disorder of his documents, and then bethought himself of calling the maid-servant, who first indignantly denied having touched anything (“I can see that’s true from the dust,” Betton scathingly interjected), and then mentioned with hauteur that a young lady had called in his absence and asked to be allowed to get a book. “A lady? Did you let her come up?” “She said somebody’d sent her.” Vyse, of course--Vyse had sent her for his manuscript! He was always mixed up with some woman, and it was just like him to send the girl of the moment to Betton’s lodgings, with instructions to force the door in his absence. Vyse had never been remarkable for delicacy. Betton, furious, glanced over his table to see if any of his own effects were missing--one couldn’t tell, with the company Vyse kept!--and then dismissed the matter from his mind, with a vague sense of magnanimity in doing so. He felt himself exonerated by Vyse’s conduct. The sense of magnanimity was still uppermost when the valet opened the door to announce “Mr. Vyse,” and Betton, a moment later, crossed the threshold of his pleasant library. His first thought was that the man facing him from the hearth-rug was the very Duncan Vyse of old: small, starved, bleached-looking, with the same sidelong movements, the same queer air of anaemic truculence. Only he had grown shabbier, and bald. Betton held out a hospitable hand. “This is a good surprise! Glad you looked me up, my dear fellow.” Vyse’s palm was damp and bony: he had always had a disagreeable hand. “You got my note? You know what I’ve come for?” he said. “About the secretaryship? (Sit down.) Is that really serious?” Betton lowered himself luxuriously into one of his vast Maple arm-chairs. He had grown stouter in the last year, and the cushion behind him fitted comfortably into the crease of his nape. As he leaned back he caught sight of his image in the mirror between the windows, and reflected uneasily that Vyse would not find _him_ unchanged. “Serious?” Vyse rejoined. “Why not? Aren’t _you?_” “Oh, perfectly.” Betton laughed apologetically. “Only--well, the fact is, you may not understand what rubbish a secretary of mine would have to deal with. In advertising for one I never imagined--I didn’t aspire to any one above the ordinary hack.” “I’m the ordinary hack,” said Vyse drily. Betton’s affable gesture protested. “My dear fellow--. You see it’s not business--what I’m in now,” he continued with a laugh. Vyse’s thin lips seemed to form a noiseless “_ Isn’t_ it?” which they instantly transposed into the audibly reply: “I inferred from your advertisement that you want some one to relieve you in your literary work. Dictation, short-hand--that kind of thing?”