He looked at me long and seriously. “You are,” he said, “in many respects exactly like Charles. Charles,” he added, “is my son. He is a singularly quixotic young man, and at present he’s in the deuce of a mess.” What on earth was I to say to that? As I did not know, I said nothing. “May I ask,” he said, “if you have any occupation or profession?” “I write stories which are not accepted. I have tried other things--taking good ideas to a business man, for instance. But I could do nothing with it. My time is my own.” “You live alone?” “Quite alone.” He walked up and down the room once or twice and then sat down in a chair opposite to me. “Would you have any objection,” he said, “to telling me rather more about yourself? I can assure you that I do not ask from idle curiosity, and if you wish it, nothing that you say will be repeated.” “I don’t think,” I said, “that there are any dark secrets in my life. At the same time I don’t know why I should tell you anything.” “No more do I,” he repeated. “Except that I have some delicate work that I want done and that I think you are one of the few people who could do it for me properly.” “That’s all right,” I said, “I want work. I’ll tell you.” I gave him a rapid sketch of what I had done. I noticed at the time that it was still more a sketch of what I had failed to do. He put in a keen question here and there. At the end he turned to me with a smile. “Now,” he said, “I am going to speak to you plainly, Miss Castel. I should imagine that your father was a clever fool.” “He was--but I don’t let you say so. You can speak quite plainly about myself.” “Certainly,” he said. “We will begin then with you. You have a decided taint of the clever fool in your disposition. For the rest, you are a singularly honest lady; you look pretty; you inspire confidence, and you have tact. You are not, perhaps, the most perfect person I could find for the work I wish to have done, but the work presses, and it might take me months to find anyone better. The work concerns my son Charles. Do you know him?” “No,” I said. “He is, I am sorry to say, a very good young man. He is quixotically good. I get very little amusement out of spending money myself, but I had hoped that my only son would have some gift for it. He has none. He has never from childhood done an extravagant thing. He buys cheap clothes, and when I get angry in consequence he tells me that these are not the things which matter. He might marry brilliantly, but he will not. He has decided to marry a poor girl who has worked for her living. I don’t mind that in the least, but, if you will pardon me the expression, I am damned if he is going to marry Miss Sibyl Norton.” “What’s the matter with her?” “Matter with her? Haven’t I said the name?--Sibyl Norton.” “Yes, but I don’t know it.”