“Mr. Charles.  He’s just been down to my room and told me.”

“I hope you remembered what I said to you about your duty so far as he is concerned.”

“Of course, Mr. Prohack.”  She smiled anew; and her smile, so clever, so self-reliant, so enigmatic, a little disturbed Mr. Prohack.

“What did my son say to you?”

“He said that he was urgently in need of a thoroughly competent secretary at once—­confidential—­and that he was sure I was the very woman to suit him, and that he would give me double the salary I was getting.”

“Did you tell him how much you’re getting?”

“No.”

“Well, neither did I!  And then?”

“Then he told me all about his business, how big it was, and growing quickly, too, and how he was after a young woman who had tact and resource and could talk to any one from a bank director to a mechanic or a clergyman, and that tens of thousands of pounds might often depend on my tact, and that you wouldn’t mind my being transferred from you to him.”

“And I suppose he asked you to go off with him immediately?”

“No, at the beginning of next week.”

“And what did you say?” demanded Mr. Prohack, amazed and frightened at the manoeuvres of his unscrupulous son.

“Naturally I said that I couldn’t possibly leave you—­unless you told me to go, and that I owed everything to you.  Then he asked me what I did for you, and I said I was particularly busy at present making a schedule of all your new purchases and checking the outfitters’ accounts, and so on.  That reminds me, I haven’t been able to get the neckties right yet.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Prohack.  “Not been able to get the neckties right!  But this is very serious.  The neckties are most important.  Most important!”

“Oh!” said Mimi.  “If necessary I shall run round to Bond Street in my lunch-hour.”

At this point the drawer in the desk started to unlock itself and open of its own accord, and Mr. Prohack’s eye caught a glimpse of a page of the sermon.

Mimi continued: 

“We mustn’t forget there’ll be hundreds of things to see to about the new house.”

“Will there?”

“Well, Mrs. Prohack told Machin, and Machin has just told me, that it’s all settled about taking the house.  And I know what taking a house is.  Mr. Carrel Quire was always taking new houses.”

“But perhaps you could keep an eye on the house even if you went over to Mr. Charles?”

“Then it’s true,” said Mimi.  “You do want me to go.”  But she showed no sign of weeping afresh.

“You must understand,” Mr. Prohack said with much benevolence, “that my son is my son.  Of course my clothes are also my clothes.  But Charles is in a difficult position.  He’s at the beginning of his career, whereas I’m at the end of mine.  He needs all the help he can get, and he can afford to pay more than I can.  And even at the cost of having to check my own neckties I shouldn’t like to stand in his way.  That’s how I look at it.  Mind you, I have certainly not told Charlie that I’ll set you free.”