“Then you’ve inspected it.”

“I have not.  But I don’t want it.  Now a determined effort will shortly be made to induce me to take that house.  I will not go into details or personalities.  I say merely that a determined effort will shortly be made to force me to act against my will and my wishes.  This effort must be circumvented.  In a word, the present is a moment when I may need the unscrupulous services of an utterly devoted confidential secretary.”

“What am I to do?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.  All I know is that my existence must not on any account be complicated, and that the possession of that house would seriously complicate it.”

“Will you leave the matter to me, Mr. Prohack?”

“What shall you do?”

“Wouldn’t it be better for you not to know what I should do?” Miss Warburton glanced at him oddly.  Her glance was agreeable, and yet disconcerting.  The attractiveness of the young woman seemed to be accentuated.  The institution of the confidential secretary was magnified, in the eyes of Mr. Prohack, into one of the greatest achievements of human society.

“Not at all,” said he, in reply.  “You are under-rating my capabilities, for I can know and not know simultaneously.”

“Well,” said Miss Warburton.  “You can’t take an old house without having the drains examined, obviously.  Supposing the report on the drains was unfavourable?”

“Do you propose to tamper with the drains?”

“Certainly not.  I shouldn’t dream of doing anything so disgraceful.  But I might tamper with the surveyor who made the report on the drains.”

“Say no more,” Mr. Prohack adjured her.  “I’m going out.”

And he went out, though he had by no means finished instructing Miss Warburton in the art of being his secretary.  She did not even know where to find the essential tools of her calling, nor yet the names of tradesmen to whom she had to telephone.  He ought to have stayed in if only to present his secretary to his wife.  But he went out—­to reflect in private upon her initiative, her ready resourcefulness, her great gift for conspiracy.  He had to get away from her.  The thought of her induced in him qualms of trepidation.  Could he after all manage her?  What a loss would she be to Mr. Carrel Quire!  Nevertheless she was capable of being foolish.  It was her foolishness that had transferred her from Mr. Carrel Quire to himself.

III

Mr. Prohack went out because he was drawn out, by the force of an attraction which he would scarcely avow even to himself,—­a mysterious and horrible attraction which, if he had been a logical human being like the rest of us, ought to have been a repulsion for him.