She shall be glimpsed, first, in the splendid house in Pilchester Square, in the desperate business that getting a place for a woman in a business house was when women were in business houses far more rare than are silk hats in the City in 1922. It was desperate. Uncle Pyke and Uncle Pyke’s friends were the only channel of opportunity; and Uncle Pyke and Uncle Pyke’s friends refused to be a channel of opportunity. They had never heard of such a thing and they desired to bathe in their soup and smack over their wine and not be troubled with such a thing. Aunt Belle rallied them and baited them and told them they were “great big grumpy things”; and Aunt Belle, in her crowded drawing-room, loved talking about the search for work and did talk about it. “Has to earn her own living,” Aunt Belle would chatter, “and is going into business! Oh, yes, ever so many girls who have to earn their own living are going into business now. She’ll wear a nice tailormade coat and skirt and carry a little satchel and flick about on the tops of buses, in the City at nine and out again at six and a nice plain wholesome lunch with a glass of milk in a tea shop. Oh, it’s wonderful what girls who have to earn their own living do nowadays. Quite right, you know. Quite right, (for them). Come over here, Rosalie. Come over here, dear child, and tell Mrs. Roodle-Hoops what you are going to do. The dear child!” But nothing done. Just that glimpse and then comes Mr. Simcox. Mr. Simcox was first met by Rosalie while walking with Aunt Belle and beautiful cousin Laetitia in the Cromwell Road. He came along carrying a letter in his hand with the obvious air of one who will forget to post it if he puts it in his pocket and probably will forget to do so in any case. He was as obviously “a man of about fifty-six” that curiously precise figure, neither a ten nor a five, always used for men who look as Mr. Simcox looked and always continued to look while Rosalie knew him, and probably always had looked. Men of “about fifty-six”--one never says “about thirty-six” or “about sixty-six”; it would be “about thirty-five” or “about seventy”--men of “about fifty-six” are almost certainly born at that age and with that appearance and they seem to continue in it to their graves.