"My time is up at the end of the month--and I've asked Mr. Rossiter not to expect me to go on." I was looking for something of the sort sooner or later, but now that it had come I saw how lonely I should be. "Oh! Where are you going? Have you got anything in particular?" "I'm going as secretary to Stacy Grainger." "I've some connection with that name," I said, absently, "though I can't remember what it is." "You've probably heard of him. He's a good deal in the public eye." "Have you known him long?" I asked, for the sake of speaking, though I was only thinking of myself. "Never knew him at all." He came nearer to me. "I've a confession to make, though it won't be of interest to you. All the while I've been here, playing with little Broke Rossiter, I've been--don't laugh--I've been contributing to the press--_moi qui vous parle_!" "What about?" "Oh, politics and finance and foreign policy and public things in general. Always had a taste that way. Now it seems that something I wrote for the _Providence Express_--people read it a good deal--has attracted the attention of the great Stacy. Yes, he's great, too--J. Howard's big rival for--" I began to recall something I had heard. "Wasn't there a story about him and Mr. Brokenshire and Mrs. Brokenshire?" "That's the man. Well, he's noticed my stuff, and written to the editor--and to me, and I'm to go to him." I was still thinking of myself and the loss of his _camaraderie_. "I hope he's going to pay you well." "Oh, for me it will be wealth." "It will probably be more than that. It will be the first long step up." He nodded confidently. "I hope so." I had again begun to move away when he stopped me the second time. "Miss Adare, what's your first name? Mine's Lawrence, as you know." If I laughed a little it was to conceal my discomfort at this abrupt approach to the intimate. "I'm rather sorry for my name," I said, apologetically. "You see my father was one of those poetically loyal Canadians who rather overdo the thing. My eldest sister should have been Victoria, because Victoria was the queen. But the Duchess of Argyll was in Canada at that time--and very nice to father and mother--and so the first of us had to be Louise. He couldn't begin on the queens till there was a second one. That's poor Vic; while I'm--I know you'll shout--I'm Alexandra. If there'd been a fourth she'd have been a Mary; but poor mother died and the series stopped." He shook hands rather gravely. "Then I shall think of you as Alexandra." "If you are going to think of me at all," I managed to say, with a little _moue_, "put me down as Alix. That's what I've always been called."