“Broke an important rule? Yet you this moment told me you could obey. Did you break it deliberately?” demanded Mr. Lucas. “Yes, Mr. Lucas, and I knew they’d bounce--dismiss me. Please don’t ask anything more about it, because the rest of it doesn’t concern me; it concerns someone else.” Cis looked at Mr. Lucas appealingly, yet with a frank certainty that he would trust her. “H’m,” Mr. Lucas murmured. “I am a lawyer, Miss Adair; my specialty is collecting and weighing evidence for my firm. Let me see: You were a telephone girl; you broke an important rule; you were dismissed, as you foresaw that you would be for that disobedience; my brother feels profoundly indebted to you; his daughter, Jeanette, is the very core of his heart; she was to have been married shortly; she is not to be married, I hear; she discovered that her lover was perfidious, unworthy; how did she discover it? Heh?” He bent his keen eyes, frowningly, upon Cis. “The newspapers said that the marriage was off; they didn’t tell us anything else about it,” said Cis, but she turned crimson and looked alarmed. “Did you ever see my niece, Jeanette Lucas?” persisted Mr. Lucas, and as Cis nodded, he added: “Lovely girl, lovely in mind as well as body!” “I saw her at a bazaar, spoke to her, and I’ve loved her ever since; she’s the loveliest thing!” cried Cis fervently, then stopped, confused as she saw Jeanette’s uncle smile. “Very well, Miss Adair,” he said, pushing over some papers on his table and leaning back in his chair as if to indicate the end of the interview. “I will see about your application. I suppose you are applying for a position with me? I may tell you that I need someone who can be trusted, rather unusually trusted, with matters which must be absolutely and completely buried within these walls. I need a confidential clerk who will take down notes for me, write letters, and whose honor must be beyond suspicion, beyond the reach of temptation by bribery or cajoling, whose discretion must be equal to her--or his--honor. I may say that I am inclined to forecast the use of the feminine pronoun; it has been my experience that women are loyal to the death, if they are capable of loyalty at all, and that, when they are to be trusted, there is less danger of advantageous offers to betray winning them over, than there is of men’s being so led away. If I took you on could you begin next Monday?” “That would just suit me. I thought I’d like a week off before I took up anything, though it’s going to be long enough, too!” Cis laughed at herself. “Habits are our masters, Miss Adair; work gets its iron hold on us quite as tight as any other vice,” observed Mr. Lucas. “Learn to loaf while you’re still young.” To his satisfaction Cis laughed up at him--they had both risen--her eyes spilling over fun, her lips parted, a hitherto unrevealed dimple appearing in one cheek. His solemn warning was not mistaken by her for serious earnest.