That's the young manager, of course. That's the fair-haired young man who lives next door to us--to where we used to live in Putney; the young man of the garden-hose and of the "rows" with my Aunt Anastasia, and of the bank that looks after Miss Million's money! Is it about Miss Million's money matters that he wishes to have this "few minutes' private conversation"? Scarcely. He wouldn't come to Miss Million's maid about that. But what can he want to see me about? "A matter of importance." What can this be? I can't guess.... For an hour now I have been sitting in Miss Million's room, with Miss Million's new possessions scattered about me, and the scent still heavy in the air of those red carnations sent in by the Honourable--the Disgraceful Jim Burke. Opposite to the sofa on which I am sitting there hangs an oval mirror in a very twiggly-wiggly gilt frame, wreathed with golden foliage held by a little Cupid, who laughs at me over a plump golden shoulder, and seems to point at my picture in the glass. It shows a small, rather prettily built girl in a delicious black frock and white apron, with her white butterfly-cap poised pertly on her chestnut hair, and on her face a look of puzzled amusement. It's really mysterious; but I can't make out the mystery. I shall have to wait until I can ask that young man himself what he means by it all. Now, as to "when and where" I am to see him. Not here. I am not Miss Million. I can't invite my acquaintances to tea and rattlesnake cocktails and gimlets and things in the Cecil lounge. And I can scarcely ask her to let me have her own sitting-room for the occasion. Outside the hotel, then. When? For at any moment I am, by rights, at Miss Million's beck and call. Her hair and hands to do; herself to dress three times a day; her new trousseau of lovely garments to organise and to keep dainty and creaseless as if they still shimmered in Bond Street. I don't like the idea of "slipping out" in the evenings, even if my mistress is going to keep dissipated hours with cobras and sulphur-crested cockatoos. So--one thing remains to me. It's all that remains to so many girls as young and as pretty as I am, and as fond of their own way, but in the thrall of domestic service. Oh, sacred right of the British maid-servant! Oh, one oasis in the desert of subjection to another woman's wishes! The "Afternoon Off"! Next Friday I shall be free again. I must write to Mr. Brace. I must tell him that the "important matter" must wait until then.... But apparently it can't wait. For even as I was taking up my--or Miss Million's--pen, one of those little chocolate-liveried page-boys tapped at Miss Million's sitting-room door and handed in a card "for Miss Smith." I took it.... His card? Mr. Brace's card? And on it is written in pencil: "May I see you at once? It is urgent!" Extraordinary! Well, "urgent" messages can't wait a week! I shall have to see him. I said to the page-boy: "Show the gentleman up."