the heaped table (with an actual
note of apology in my voice for having mistaken her!) I noticed a
little elderly man, a vague pepper-and-salt effect, sitting by a
business-like desk in the corner, his hat and stick on the chair beside
him, a book and pencil on his knee.

"Good morning, Mr. Vail, I rather hoped you might be here; let me
present you to my aunt, Mrs.----"

"Good heavens!" I almost said it aloud, for the vague pepper-and-salt
took on familiar lines suddenly, and the matter-of-fact little features
scattered so indistinguishably, as it were, though the boyishly round
face became obviously one with the much-photographed trader-prince; it
was Absolom Vail, the multimillionaire! When had he...

"Mrs. Leeth used to be Mr. Vail's housekeeper for many years," my young
doctor's voice sounded reprovingly (had my jaw dropped?) "and he often
looks in on her like this."

"Oh!" I recalled the hat and stick and breathed again. Not that I had
any interest in the old gentleman, but he seemed a sort of public
character, he and his "old stocking savings-bank," his "millions for
deposit, but not a cent for speculation," his "every penny earned in
honest trade," and all the rest of it.

"Never forgot an old friend yet," he chirruped, and the housekeeper
smiled gravely. It was very decent and kindly and quite what one would
have expected; I remembered that every employee always received a
personally selected gift at Christmas and that he had stood godfather
for seventeen (or was it twenty-seven?) children of labourers, born on
the great eight thousand acre estate on the Hudson.

My boy listened a moment to a call from the house-telephone, turned on
his heel and swung hurriedly down the corridor. I appeared to have
been abandoned.

The housekeeper's lips moved silently as she fingered the napkins on
the further corner of the table; it was unnecessary, evidently, to
include her in the social situation, though she would be perfectly
capable of the inclusion if it should be thought best.

"I had the pleasure of meeting your daughter in London last spring, Mr.
Vail," I said.

"Minnie?" he inquired, his shrewd little eyes on me.

"I think so--the Countess of Barkington."

"Yes, that's Minnie. Well, Minnie's a good girl, I guess. I haven't
seen her much lately. Not for some years, but once or twice. Ever see
Irene?"

"I don't think so. She married----"

"She took an Italian. She's a countess, too--contessa t