ill overtax his
strength."

"I didn't know, Harrow," smiled the secretary, "that you were a disciple
of the poets."

"Only, sir, in an unostentatious way," deprecated the man. "It has been
my good fortune to serve in families where such niceties have been
highly regarded, sir, and, I take it, advantageous associations reflect
themselves in one's tastes, sir. But--" he dropped his voice, and came a
step nearer--"but, sir, if you will pardon me, sir, I should like to ask
a question. You know, of course, that the master's sister arrived last
night from Europe?"

Bristoll nodded. He himself had not yet had the privilege of seeing the
young woman, the fame of whose loveliness had preceded her: a loveliness
which had enthralled men from the Irish Sea to Suez.

"Of course, sir, it's not for me to entertain opinions, but--" The
butler paused in evident embarrassment, and the secretary's eyes
narrowed a little.

"You are quite right, Harrow," he asserted shortly. "I can't see that
you are required to express any opinion."

"Of course, sir, I was only going to say--"

"Well--don't say it."

But, for all his obsequiousness, the admirable Harrow was a persistent
diplomat.

"No, sir, of course I sha'n't. I was only going to ask you--"

The secretary looked up with an impatient frown on a forehead shaped for
resolution.

"All right. Ask me and have it over."

"I was going to inquire, sir, whether you regard it likely that the new
mistress would--as I might say, sir--institute any sweeping changes of
regime in our _milieu_? Things have gone on very well, sir, as they
were." The interrogation carried a note of sharp anxiety: the
apprehension of a petty monarch who might face the fate of being
deposed.

"I don't know." The reply was curt, and Harrow with a bow said only,
"Yes, sir, thank you. I was just speculating on the possibilities, sir."

For a while there was silence in the library as Bristoll ran through
letter after letter, his hand racing over the stenographer's pad upon
which he reduced their purport to succinct notes. He always enjoyed
these responsible mornings with his chief because they were times of
intimate association with a mind that directed colossal operations, and
they savored almost of the importance of cabinet meetings.

Often, as he read the fluctuations of the ticker tape or glanced at
financial scareheads in the evening papers, he smiled knowingly with the
memory of a sentence spoken at the