door of the offices asked Christopher his name, and
he hesitated a moment.

"You need not announce me," he said quietly, at last. "I am Mr.
Masters."

The man gave a guttural gasp of amazement. A rumour of the possible
arrival of the young millionaire had percolated despite Mr. Clisson's
care, through the range of desks to the doorkeeper, who without
discernible reasons had expected some time in the day a procession of
black coats and grave men to appear from the doors of the lift and
with formal solemnity to proceed to the closely locked door of that
remote silent office. He opened the door for this calm, quiet young
man in flurried trepidation, half expecting that Mr. Clisson would
dismiss him on the spot for transgressing such a fundamental rule as
admitting a stranger without announcing his name, but as totally
unable to disobey the stranger as if it were Peter Masters himself.

Christopher walked quickly down the line of clerks, who looked up one
after the other, and did not look back at their work again. At last a
senior man advanced and accosted him.

"Do you want Mr. Clisson, sir?" he asked, in a tone verging between
deference and curiosity.

Christopher said he did, and added abruptly, "I remember you, you are
Mr. Hunter. I saw you four years ago when I came here with my
father."

He caught his breath when he had said it. It was purely involuntary.
Some unaccountable association of ideas was bridging the distance
between him and the dead man minute by minute. But Mr. Hunter
transferred his allegiance from the dead to the living in that moment
of recognition, and led him away to Mr. Clisson's hitherto
all-important presence with mechanical alacrity rather than personal
desire to relinquish the honours of escort.

Mr. Clisson was a keen, sharp-featured man of narrow outlook, the best
of servants, the worst of masters. A genius for detail and a
miraculous memory had carried him from the position of junior clerk to
his present prominence when the death of the Principal left him with
his minute knowledge of routine and detail practically master of the
situation as far as Mr. Saunderson was concerned. But his inability to
bend with the need of the day, or to cope with wider issues than those
concerned with office work had had far-reaching results, not even
wholly unconnected with the tragedy in the mill yard at the Patrimondi
works.

He apologised to Christopher for the lack of a better reception, as if