came in to
see you about if you happened to know of anything? Because our
consuls hear of pretty nearly everything that's going on, don't
they?"

It wasn't flattery; her good faith was manifest in her face and
voice; and Selby suppled under it like a stroked cat.

"I wouldn't say that, Miss Pilgrim," he demurred coyly. He paused.
Her mention of shipping offices disturbed him. He had much business
with shipping offices; and he was picturing to himself, involuntarily
and with distaste, that gentle courage bruising itself upon the rough
husks of managers and their like, peddling itself from one noisy
Russian office to another, wearing thin its panoply of innocence upon
evil speech and vile intention. There were the dregs of manhood in
him, for all his narrowness and feebleness, and the prospect offended
him like an indecency.

"No, there's only one job I know of in Nikolaieff that you could
take," he said abruptly. "And that's right here in this office."

He had said it upon a rare impulse of generosity; all men are subject
to such impulses; and he halted upon the word for his reward. She
rendered it handsomely.

"Oh!" she cried, her grey eyes shining and all her pale and gentle
face alive with sudden enthusiasm. "Here in the Consulate?" She spoke
the word as a devotee might speak of a temple. "That, oh, that's
glorious!"

It was utterly satisfactory; Selby swelled and bridled.

"Er, secretary and stenographer," he said largely. "I had a young man
here a while since, but I let him go. He couldn't seem to be
respectful. And, er, as to terms, Miss Pilgrim."

"Yes?" murmured Miss Pilgrim, as respectfully as he could wish.

But the vice-consul did not continue. In his moment of splendor, it
may be that he became aware that only a part of his audience was
applauding, and his eyes had fallen on Waters. Till that moment he
had actually forgotten him; he seized now on an occasion to be still
more impressive.

"Hey, you Waters!" he cried commandingly. "What you waitin' there
for? Didn't you hear me tell you to clear out of this? Go on, now;
an' don't let me see you in this office again!"

She failed to come up to his expectations this time; she looked
puzzled and distressed and seemed to shrink. Waters, removing his
eyes from her face, stood deliberately upright. His vagueness and
dreaminess gathered themselves into gravity. His lips moved as though
on the brink of an answer, but he said nothing.

"Go on!" yapped