“I was only crying because you’re so kind.  I know I did behave in a criminal way.”

“Just so, Miss Warburton.  But it will be more convenient for me and for you too if you can arrange to cry in your own time and not in mine.”  And he continued to address her, in his own mind:  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed your aspiring nose and your ruthless little lips and your gift for conspiracy and your wonderful weakness for tears!  And don’t confuse me with Mr. Carrel Quire, because we’re two quite different people!  You’ve got to be useful to me.”  And in a more remote part of his mind, he continued still further:  “You’re quite a decent sort of child, only you’ve been spoilt.  I’ll unspoil you.  You’ve taken your first medicine rather well.  I like you, or I shall like you before I’ve done with you.”

Miss Warburton wiped her eyes.

“You understand,” Mr. Prohack proceeded aloud, “that you’re engaged as my confidential secretary.  And when I say ‘confidential’ I mean ‘confidential’ in the fullest sense.”

“Oh, quite,” Miss Warburton concurred almost passionately.

“And you aren’t anybody else’s secretary but mine.  You may pretend to be everybody else’s secretary, you may pretend as much as you please—­it may even be advisable to do so—­but the fact must always remain that you are mine alone.  You have to protect my interests, and let me warn you that my interests are sometimes very strange, not to say peculiar.  Get well into your head that there are not ten commandments in my service.  There is only one:  to watch over my interests, to protect them against everybody else in the whole world.  In return for a living wage, you give me the most absolute loyalty, a loyalty which sticks at nothing, nothing, nothing.”

“Oh, Mr. Prohack!” replied Mary Warburton, smiling simply.  “You needn’t tell me all that.  I entirely understand.  It’s the usual thing for confidential secretaries, isn’t it?”

“And now,” Mr. Prohack went on, ignoring her.  “This being made perfectly clear, go into the boudoir—­that’s the room through there—­and bring me here all the parcels lying about.  Our next task is to check the accuracy of several of the leading tradesmen in the West End.”

“I think there are one or two more parcels that have been delivered this morning, in the hall,” said Miss Warburton.  “Perhaps I had better fetch them.”

“Perhaps you had.”

In a few minutes, Miss Warburton, by dint of opening parcels, had transformed the bedroom into a composite of the principal men’s shops in Piccadilly and Bond Street.  Mr. Prohack recoiled before the chromatic show and also before the prospect of Eve’s views on the show.

“Take everything into the boudoir,” said he, “and arrange them under the sofa.  It’s important that we should not lose our heads in this crisis.  When you go out to lunch you will buy some foolscap paper and this afternoon you will make a schedule of the goods, divided according to the portions of the human frame which they are intended to conceal or adorn.  What are you laughing at, Miss Warburton?”