The interview was brought to an end in a few moments. It seemed to Mariposa that the scenes which Mrs. Willers assured her were so big with promise were incredibly short for moments so fraught with destiny. She seemed hardly to have caught her breath yet from the ascent of the four flights of stairs, when they were once again walking down the corridor, with the writing men looking up with pricked ears at the returning rustle of skirts. It was Mrs. Willers who had wafted her away so quickly. “Never beat about the bush where you deal with Jake Shackleton,” she said, slipping her hand in Mariposa’s arm as they passed down the corridor. “He’s got no use for people who gambol round the subject. Say your say and then go. That’s the way to get on with him.” In the anteroom the boy was still sitting, his chair tilted back on its hind legs, _The Trumpet_ in his hands. Nevertheless, he had made an incursion into the inner regions to find out whom Mrs. Willers was piloting into the sanctum, for he had the curiosity of those who hang on the fringes of the newspaper world. As the ladies passed him, going toward the stair-head, a young man rose above it, almost colliding with them. Then in the gloom of the dejected gas-jets he stood aside, against the wall, letting them pass out. He wore a long ulster with a turned-up collar. Between the edge of this and the brim of his derby hat, there was the gleam of a pair of eye-glasses and a suggestion of a fair mustache. He raised his hat, holding it above his head during the interval of their transit, disclosing a small pate clothed with smooth blond hair. “Who was that lady with Mrs. Willers?” he said to the boy, as he walked toward the door into the corridor. “She’s some singing lady,” answered that youth drawlingly, tilting his chair still farther back, “what’s come to see Mr. Shackleton about singing at the opera-house. Her name’s Moreau.” The young man, without further comment, passed into the inner hall, leaving the boy smiling with pride that his carelessly-acquired information should have been so soon of use. For the questioner was Winslow Shackleton, the millionaire’s only son.