he dined with the Pinkertons and went to
the theatre with them. But on Monday he had to go back to London.

On Monday morning Clare came to her father's office, and found Jane
taking down letters from Lord Pinkerton's private secretary, a young man
who had been exempted from military service through the war on the
grounds that he was Lord Pinkerton's right hand.

Clare sat and waited, and looked round the room for violets, while this
young gentleman dictated. His letters were better worded than Lord
Pinkerton's, because he was better at the English language. Lord
Pinkerton would fall into commercialisms; he would say 're' and 'same'
and 'to hand,' and even sometimes 'your favour of the 16th.' His
secretary knew that that was not the way in which a great newspaper chief
should write. Himself he dictated quite a good letter, but annoyed Jane
by putting in the punctuation, as if she was an imbecile. Thus he was
saying now, pacing up and down the room, plunged in thought:--

'Lord Pinkerton is not comma however comma averse to' (Jane wrote 'from')
'entertaining your suggestions comma and will be glad if you can make it
convenient to call to-morrow bracket Tuesday close the bracket afternoon
comma between three and five stop.'

He could not help it; one must make allowances for those who dictate. But
Clare saw Jane's teeth release her clenched tongue to permit it to form
silently the word 'Ninny.'

The private secretary retired into his chief's inner sanctum.

'Morning, old thing,' said Jane to Clare, uncovering her typewriter
without haste and yawning, because she had been up late last night.

'Morning,' Clare yawned too. She was warm and pretty, in a spring
costume, with a big bunch of sweet violets at her waist. She
touched these.

'Aren't they top-hole. Mr. Hobart left them this morning before he went.
Jolly decent of him to think of it, getting off in a hurry like he
was.... He's not a bad young thing, do you think.'

'Not so bad.' Jane extracted carbons from a drawer and fitted them to her
paper. Then she stretched, like a cat.

'Oh, I'm sleepy.... Don't feel like work to-day. For two pins I'd cut it
and go out with you and mother. The sun's shining, isn't it?'

Clare stood by the window, and swung the blind-tassel. They had five days
of Paris before them, and Paris suddenly seemed empty....

'We're going to have a topping week,' she said.

Then Lord Pinkerton came in.

'Hobart gone?' he asked Jane.