“I cannot conceive a person less able to advise you,” she answered.  “I have said before that my husband’s connection with your company is one which I dislike extremely, and I should be delighted to hear that it was ended.”

“If it were ended at the present moment,” Phipps said slowly, “it would, I fear, be under somewhat painful circumstances.”

“What do you mean?” Josephine demanded.

“What I very much hate to put into plain words.  Your husband has used money of the company’s to which he has no right.  I have been paying him four thousand a year, hoping that indirectly I was benefiting you.  He has deceived me.  I see no reason why I should spare him.  The last money he drew from the company—­his action in drawing it amounts to a criminal misdemeanour.”

“Do you mean that you will prosecute him?”

“Why not?”

Josephine for the first time showed signs of disturbance.

“Is this what you came to tell me?” she asked.

“In a sense, yes!”

“What is the amount?”

“The specific amount in question is a thousand pounds.”

“And do you want me to find it to save my husband from prison?”

Mr. Phipps was shocked.

“My dear lady,” he protested, “you have utterly and entirely misunderstood me.”

“I am not so sure about that,” she answered.

“You have misunderstood me if you imagine for a moment that I came here to ask you to make up the amount of your husband’s defalcations.”

“What did you come for, then?”

“I came,” Peter Phipps declared, “entirely out of consideration for you.  I came to ask what you wished done, and to do it.  I came to assure you of my sympathy; if you will accept it, my friendship; and if you will further honour me by accepting it, my help.”

“Just how do you propose to help me?” Josephine enquired.

“Just in the way,” he answered, “that a man to whom money is of no account may sometimes help a woman for whom he has a most profound, a most sincere, a most respectful admiration”.

“You came, in fact,” Josephine said, “to place your bank account at my disposal?”

“I would never have ventured,” he protested, “to have put the matter so crudely.  I came to express my admiration for you and my desire to help you.”

“And in return?”

“I do not bargain.  Lady Dredlinton,” Phipps said slowly.  “I must confess that if you could regard me with a little more toleration, if you would accept at any rate a measure of my friendship, would endeavour, may I say, to adopt a more sympathetic attitude with regard to me, it would give me the deepest pleasure.”

Josephine shook her head.

“Mr. Phipps,” she said, “you have the name of being a very hard-headed and shrewd business man.  You come here offering my husband’s honour and your banking account.  I could not possibly accept these things from a person to whom I can make no return.  If you will let me know the exact amount of my husband’s defalcation, I will try and pay it.”