"It would never bore me," breathed Miss Ellis, "and my uncle is always very glad to see you. He looks upon you almost as his son." George flushed again and looked awkward. "It is very kind of Mr. Tait," he remarked coldly, "seeing that I am only a clerk in his office." "Uncle was only a clerk once," said Maud, smiling. "And look what he is now, Mr. Walker. Some day you will be like him." "I don't think so," said George, looking across to the stout, ungraceful form of the successful stockbroker, who was being waited upon hand and foot by two society ladies of the smart set, anxious to secure tips. Maud took his remark in its wrong sense. "Oh, you must hope," she declared playfully. "With influence," she spoke meaningly, "you will do much." "I have no influence," returned the young man coldly. "That is your own fault," retorted Miss Ellis. "The tide of fortune is flowing past your door, and you will not launch your boat." "I am waiting for a passenger," said Walker, thinking of Lesbia. Jealous and cunning as she was, Maud was quite taken in for the moment, and smiled graciously. She fancied that he referred to her. "You need not wait long," she hinted. George found the situation intolerable, and on the spur of the moment, although it was neither the time nor the place to be confidential, he spoke out. There should be no further misunderstandings if he could help it. "My waiting depends upon Mr. Hale," he said bluntly. Maud bit her thin lip, and leaned back, with an artificial laugh. Inwardly she was furious, as she now knew that his remark had referred to "that girl," as she contemptuously called Lesbia. But she was too much the woman of the world to reveal her feelings and, moreover, utilised his observation to learn as much of the truth as possible. "Ah," she said archly, "a little bird told me that Mr. Hale has a beautiful daughter. But I understood that she was engaged to Captain Sargent." "She is engaged to me," flashed out George, quite forgetting that he was speaking to a jealous woman. "Ah!" said Miss Ellis again, controlling her countenance with difficulty; "the course of true love is not running smoothly. Poor Mr. Walker, I must help you to gain your wife." "You!" blurted out George like a fool. Maud sat up and erected her crest like a snake. "Yes, I," she said haughtily, anxious only for the moment to save her womanly pride. "Why should I not help a friend? I look on you almost as a brother." Still like a fool, George believed her, and indeed her indignant manner would have deceived a much cleverer man. He was very young and very green, and in Maud's designing hands could be moulded like wax. She could have struck him in the face for the insult he had offered her, but hiding her rage under a friendly smile, she laid her plans to entrap him beyond hope of escape. "I shall get Mr. Hale to bring his daughter here," she said quietly, "and then you can talk to her at your leisure."