"It is very kind of you," Lilian Rosenberg replied, "and I will gladly do so when I am not lunching with Mr. Hamar. But he has invited me to have all my meals with him." "That doesn't mean you are obliged to have them with him every day!" Kelson cried. "Lunch with me this morning." "I am very sorry," Lilian Rosenberg replied, looking at Kelson with mock pleading eyes, "please don't scold me, but I've really promised Mr. Hamar." "Have tea with me, then," Kelson said. "I've promised him that, too." "Supper then!" Kelson said, savagely. "I'm awfully sorry, but I'm engaged all this evening, and practically every evening." "With Mr. Hamar?" Kelson asked suspiciously. "Oh no! my own private business," Lilian Rosenberg replied. "Do forgive me. I should so like to have been able to accept your invitation. Now I must hurry back to my work," and she gave him her hand, which Kelson held, and would have gone on holding all the morning, had he not heard Hamar's well-known tread ascending the stairs. "Look here!" he said, as they entered his room together, "I want Miss Rosenberg to have luncheon with me one day this week, and she tells me you have already invited her. Let her come with me to-morrow." "It is impossible," Hamar said. "Now I'll tell you what it is, Matt, I anticipated this the moment I saw you two together, and its got to stop. You would genuinely fall in love with that girl--or as a matter of fact any other pretty girl--if you saw much of her--and love, I tell you, would be absolutely disastrous to our interests. You must let her alone--absolutely alone, I tell you. I have given her strict orders she is to confine herself to her work, and to me." "I think you take a great deal too much on yourself. I shall see just as much of Miss Rosenberg, when she is disengaged, as I please." "Then she never shall be disengaged. But come, do be sane and put some restraint on this mad infatuation of yours for pretty faces. Can't you keep it in check anyhow for two years--till after the term of the compact has expired! Then you will be free to indulge in it, to your heart's content. For Heaven's sake, be guided by me. Harmony between us must be kept at all costs. Don't you understand?" "Oh, yes! I understand all right," Kelson said, "and I'll try. But it's very hard--and I really don't see there would be any danger in my taking her out occasionally." "Well, I do," Hamar replied, "and there's an end. To turn to something that may spell business. Just before I got up this morning I saw a striped figure bending over me!" "A striped figure?" "Yes! A cylindrical figure, about seven feet high, without any visible limbs; but which gave me the impression it had limbs--of a sort--if it cared to show them." "You were frightened?"