She flushed a little at the mere suggestion of praise and sat silent. “I presume you have quite understood, Miss May,” he presently resumed, in a more formal tone, “that I require the services of an assistant for one year at least--possibly two years. If I engage you, you must sign an agreement with me to that effect. Another very special point is that of confidence. Nothing that you do, see, or hear while working under my instructions is ever to pass your lips. You must maintain the most inviolable secrecy, and when once you are in this house you must neither write letters nor receive them. If you are, as I suggested in my advertisement, ‘alone in the world, without any claims on your time or your affections,’ you will not find this a hardship. My experiments in chemistry may or may not give such results as I hope for, but while I am engaged upon them I want no imitative bunglers attempting to get on the same line. Therefore I will run no risks of even the smallest hint escaping as to the nature of my work.” Diana bent her head in assent. “I understand,” she said--“And I am quite willing to agree to your rules. I should only wish to write one letter, and that I can do from the hotel,--just to return the money my friend lent me for my expenses. And I should ask you to advance me that sum out of whatever salary you offer. Then I need give no further account of myself. Sophy,--that is my friend--would write to acknowledge receipt of the money, and then our correspondence would end.” “This would not vex or worry you?” inquired Dimitrius. She smiled. “I am past being vexed or worried at anything!” she said. “Life is just a mere ‘going on’ for me now, with thankfulness to find even a moment of interest in it as I go!” Dimitrius rose from his chair and walked up and down, his hands clasped behind his back. She watched him in fascinated attention, with something of suspense and fear lest after all he should decide against her. She noted the supple poise of his athletic figure, clad in a well-cut, easy summer suit of white flannels,--his dark, compact head, carried with a certain expression of haughtiness, and last, but not least, his hands, which in their present careless attitude nevertheless expressed both power and refinement. Suddenly he wheeled sharply round and stood, facing her.