Nesta Mallathorpe, looking very dignified and almost stately in her mourning, was obviously angry, indignant, and agitated. But Pratt was as cool and as fully at his ease as if he were back in Eldrick's office, receiving the everyday ordinary client. He swept his door open and executed his politest bow--and was clever enough to pretend that he saw nothing of his visitor's agitation. Yet deep within himself he felt more tremors than one, and it needed all his powers of dissimulation to act and speak as if this were the most usual of occurrences. "Good morning, Miss Mallathorpe!" he said. "You wish to see me? Come into my private office, if you please. I haven't fixed on a clerk yet," he went on, as he led his visitor through the outer room, and to the easy chair by his desk. "I have several applications from promising aspirants, but I have to be careful, you know, Miss Mallathorpe--it's a position of confidence. And now," he concluded, as he closed the door upon Nesta and himself, "how is Mrs. Mallathorpe today? Improving, I hope?" Nesta made no reply to these remarks, or to the question. And instead of taking the easy chair which Eldrick had found so comfortable, she went to one which stood against the wall opposite Pratt's desk and seated herself in it in as upright a position as the wall behind her. "I wish to speak to you--plainly!" she said, as Pratt, who now regarded her somewhat doubtfully, realizing that he was in for business of a serious nature, sat down at his desk. "I want to ask you a plain question--and I expect a plain answer. Why are you blackmailing my mother?" Pratt shook his head--as if he felt more sorrow than anger. He glanced deprecatingly at his visitor. "I think you'll be sorry--on reflection--that you said that, Miss Mallathorpe," he answered. "You're a little--shall we say--upset? A little--shall we say--angry? If you were calmer, you wouldn't say such things--you wouldn't use such a term as--blackmailing. It's--dear me, I dare say you don't know it!--it's actionable. If I were that sort of man, Miss Mallathorpe, and you said that of me before witnesses--ah! I don't know what mightn't happen. However--I'm not that sort of man. But--don't say it again, if you please!" "If you don't answer my question--and at once," said Nesta, whose cheeks were pale with angry determination, "I shall say it again in a fashion you won't like--not to you, but to the police!" Pratt smiled--a quiet, strange smile which made his visitor feel a sudden sense of fear. And again he shook his head, slowly and deprecatingly. "Oh, no!" he said gently. "That's a bigger mistake than the other, Miss Mallathorpe! The police! Oh, not the police, I think, Miss Mallathorpe. You see--other people than you might go to the police--about something else."