“I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, leaning forward.  “I couldn’t stand not seeing you.  That was all.  Convention is a pitiful thing—­sometimes—­” He hesitated, then fell to studying the carpet.

She looked at him, silent in her uncertainty.  His expression was grave, almost absent-minded.  And again her troubled eyes rested on the disturbing symmetry of feature and figure in all the unconscious grace of repose; and in his immobility there seemed something even of nobility about him which she had not before noticed.

She stole another glance at him.  He remained very still, leaning forward, apparently quite oblivious of her.  Then he came to himself with a quick smile, which she recognised as characteristic of all that disturbed her about this man—­a smile in which there was humour, a little malice and self-sufficiency and—­many, many things she did not try to analyse.

“Don’t you really want an unreliable servant?” he asked.

His perverse humour perplexed her, but she smiled.

“Don’t you remember that I once asked you if you needed an able-bodied man?” he insisted.

She nodded.

“Well, I’m that man.”

She assented, smiling conventionally, not at all understanding.  He laughed, too, thoroughly enjoying something.

“It isn’t really very funny,” he said, “Ask your brother-in-law.  I had an interview with him before I came here.  And I think there’s a chance that he may give me a desk and a small salary in his office.”

“How absurd!” she said.

“It is rather absurd.  I’m so absolutely useless.  It’s only because of the relationship that Mr. Craig is doing this.”

She said uneasily:  “You are not really serious, are you?”

“Grimly serious.”

“About a—­a desk and a salary—­in my brother-in-law’s office?”

“Unless you’ll hire me as a useful man.  Otherwise, I hope for a big desk and a small salary.  I went to Mr. Craig this morning, and the minute I saw him I knew he was fine enough to be your brother-in-law.  And I said, ’I am Philip Ormond Berkley; how do you do!’ And he said, ‘How do you do!’ And I said, ’I’m a relation,’ and he said, ‘I believe so.’  And I said, ’I was educated at Harvard and in Leipsic; I am full of useless accomplishments, harmless erudition, and insolvent amiability, and I am otherwise perfectly worthless.  Can you give me a position?’”

“And he said:  ‘What else is the matter?’ And I said, ’The stock market.’  And that is how it remains, I am to call on him to-morrow.”

She said in consternation:  “Forgive me.  I did not think you meant it.  I did not know that you were—­were——­”

“Ruined!” he nodded laughingly.  “I am, practically.  I have a little left—­badly invested—­which I’m trying to get at.  Otherwise matters are gay enough.”

She said wonderingly:  “Had this happened when—­I saw you that first time?”