Margaret Belman frowned. She was twenty-three, an age when youngish men are rather tiresome. On the other hand, men in the region of fifty are not especially attractive; and she loathed Mr. Reeder’s side-whiskers, that made him look rather like a Scottish butler. Of course, he was a dear.… Here the train reached the junction. She found herself at the surprisingly small station of Siltbury before she had quite made up her mind whether she was in love with Mr. Reeder or merely annoyed with him. The driver of the station cab stopped his unhappy-looking horse before the small gateway and pointed with his whip. “This is the best way in for you, miss,” he said. “Mr. Daver’s office is at the end of the path.” He was a shrewd old man, who had driven many applicants for the post of secretary to Larmes Keep, and he guessed that this, the prettiest of all, did not come as a guest. In the first place, she brought no baggage, and then too the ticket-collector had come running after her to hand back the return half of the railway ticket which she had absent-mindedly surrendered. “I’d better wait for you, miss…?” “Oh, yes, please,” said Margaret Belman hastily as she got down from the dilapidated victoria. “You got an appointment?” The cabman was a local character, and local characters assume privileges. “I ast you,” he explained carefully, “because lots of young wimmin have come up to Larmes without appointments and Mr. Daver wouldn’t see ’em. They just cut out the advertisement and come along, but the ad. says _write_. I suppose I’ve made a dozen journeys with young wimmin who ain’t got appointments. I’m telling you for your own good.” The girl smiled. “You might have warned them before they left the station,” she said good-humouredly, “and saved them the cab fare. Yes, I have an appointment.” From where she stood by the gate she had a clear view of Larmes Keep. It bore no resemblance to an hotel and less to the superior boarding-house that she knew it to be. That part of the house which had been the original Keep was easily distinguished, though the grey, straight walls were masked with ivy that covered also part of the buildings which had been added in the course of the years. She looked across a smooth green lawn, on which were set a few wicker chairs and tables, to a rose garden which, even in late autumn, was a blaze of colour. Behind this was a belt of pine trees that seemed to run to the cliff’s edge. She had a glimpse of a grey-blue sea and a blur of dim smoke from a steamer invisible below the straight horizon. A gentle wind carried the fragrance of the pines to her, and she sniffed ecstatically. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” she breathed. The cabman said it “wasn’t bad,” and pointed with his whip again. “It’s that little square place--only built a few years ago. Mr. Daver is more of a writing gentleman than a boarding-house gentleman.”