y, "never interferes with my
business. I take it, of course, that you have called upon a business
matter. Will you sit down?"

"Thank you; I have only a moment. And what I am here for is to ask you,
as Mr. Erroll's friend, to use your influence on Mr. Erroll--every atom
of your influence--to prevent him from ruining himself financially
through his excesses. I ask you, for his family's sake, to
discountenance any more gambling; to hold him strictly to his duties in
your office, to overlook no more shortcomings of his, but to demand from
him what any trained business man demands of his associates as well as
of his employees. I ask this for the boy's sake."

Neergard's close-set eyes focussed a trifle closer to Selwyn's, yet did
not meet them.

"Mr. Selwyn," he said, "have you come here to criticise the conduct of
my business?"

"Criticise! No, I have not. I merely ask you--"

"You are merely asking me," cut in Neergard, "to run my office, my
clerks, and my associate in business after some theory of your own."

Selwyn looked at the man and knew he had lost; yet he forced himself to
go on:

"The boy regards you as his friend. Could you not, as his friend,
discourage his increasing tendency toward dissipation--"

"I am not aware that he is dissipated."

"What!"

"I say that I am not aware that Gerald requires any interference from
me--or from you, either," said Neergard coolly. "And as far as that
goes, I and my business require no interference either. And I believe
that settles it."

He touched a button; the man-servant appeared to usher Selwyn out.

The latter set his teeth in his under lip and looked straight and hard
at Neergard, but Neergard thrust both hands in his pockets, turned
squarely on his heel, and sauntered out of the room, yawning as he went.

It bid fair to become a hard day for Selwyn; he foresaw it, for there
was more for him to do, and the day was far from ended, and his
self-restraint was nearly exhausted!

An hour later he sent his card in to Rosamund Fane; and Rosamund came
down, presently, mystified, flattered, yet shrewdly alert and prepared
for anything since the miracle of his coming justified such preparation.

"Why in the world," she said with a flushed gaiety perfectly genuine,
"did you ever come to see _me_? Will you please sit here, rather near
me?--or I shall not dare believe that you are that same Captain Selwyn
who once was so deliciously rude to me at the Minster's dance