It had been growing on him lately, this habit of starting at nothing, this ridiculous spasm of shoulder-blade, eyelids and mouth.  It was a cause of many smiles to the young ladies of his boarding-house; and this lady was smiling too, though after another fashion.  Her smile was remote and delicately poised; it hovered in the fine, long-drawn corners of her mouth and eyes; it sobered suddenly as a second and less violent movement turned towards her his white and too expressive face.  He could not say by what subtle and tender transitions it passed into indifference, nor how in passing it contrived to intimate her regret at having taken him somewhat at a disadvantage.  It was all done and atoned for in the lifting of an eyelid, before he could take in what she had actually said.

Her letter?  He murmured some sort of assent, and entered on a dreamy and protracted search for his pocket handkerchief.  He was miserably conscious that she was looking, looking down on him all the time.  For this lady was tall, so tall indeed that her gaze seemed to light on his eyelids rather than his eyes.  When he had found his courage and his handkerchief he looked up and their eyes met half way.  Hers were brown with the tinge of hazel that makes brown eyes clear; they had a liquid surface of light divided from their darkness, and behind the darkness was more light, and the light and darkness were both unfathomable.

These eyes were entirely unembarrassed by the encounter.  They still swept him with their long gaze, lucid, meditative, and a little critical.

“You have been very prompt.”

“We understood that no time was to be lost.”

She hesitated.  “Mr. Rickman understood, did he not, that I asked for some one with experience?”

Most certainly Mr. Rickman understood.

“Do you think you will be able to do what I want?”

Her eyes implied that he seemed to her too young to have had any experience at all.

Knowing that a sense of humour was not one of the things required of him, he controlled a smile.

“We understood you wanted an expert, so I came myself.”

“You are Mr. Rickman then?”

“Well—­Mr. Rickman’s son.”

The lady puckered her brows as if trying to recall something, an idea, a memory that escaped her.  She gave it up.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“Not more than half an hour or so.”

“I am sorry.  Perhaps you had better stay now and see what has to be done.”

He was tired, he had eaten nothing all day, his nerves were out of order, and he had an abominable headache, but he intimated that he and his time were at her service.  She spoke with authority, and he wondered who she was.  Sir Frederick Harden’s daughter?  Or his sister?  Or his wife?

“As you see, the books are fairly well arranged.  It will not take very long to sort them.”

Oh wouldn’t it, though!  His heart sank miserably as he followed her progress round the room.