Aunt Belle hadn’t an idea. “He’s an agent,” said Aunt Belle, “but an agent for what I’m sure I don’t know. He’s a very mysterious, fussy, funny little person. We knew him in Bombay where he had a very good position, but he retired and what he does now I’m sure I can’t say. But he’s very busy. You heard him say how busy he is. Rosalie, he might know of something for you. We’ll ask him, dear child. The funny, ugly little monster! We’ll ask him. He might help.” He did help. A very short while afterwards, Rosalie received the appointment of Private Secretary to Mr. Simcox; twenty-five shillings a week; one pound five shillings a week! Office hours ten to five! Saturdays ten to one! Holiday a fortnight a year! A man’s work! A man’s weekly salary! A man’s office hours! The ecstasy of it! The ecstasy! The matter with Mr. Simcox was that, in India a man of affairs, in England he found himself a man of no affairs and a man who had “lost touch.” On a leave from the Bombay house of the indigo firm he had been prevailed upon by his mother and his maiden sister to remain at home and look after them and he had done it and gone on doing it, and they had died and he had never married, and he had now no relatives, and by this and by that (as he told Rosalie early in her installation) he had dropped out of friendships and, as he expressed it “lost touch.” He owned and occupied one of those enormous houses in Bayswater. It had been his mother’s and he lived on in it after her death and the death of his sister, alone with a housekeeper. The housekeeper resided in the vast catacombs of the basement of the enormous house; Mr. Simcox resided in the immense reception rooms, miles above, of the first floor; the three suites above him, scowling gloomily across a square at the twin mausoleums opposite, were unoccupied and un-visited; on the first floor Mr. Simcox had his office. The business done in this office, which Rosalie was now to assist, and why it was done, was in this wise and was thus explained to Rosalie.