“I asked you,” Lilian Rosenberg said, as Kelson resumed his seat, “if the dream was a warning?”

“No,” Kelson said, “I shouldn’t take it as such.  Despite the rather peculiar form it took, I am inclined to think it isn’t a dream with any real significance—­but merely a chance dream—­a dream compounded of sayings and actions of the past that have come back to you all higgledy-piggledy, as they so often do in dreams.  You learned a lot of poetry I suppose when you were at school?”

“Yes, but none like this.”

“No, I didn’t suppose so, but the mere fact that your mind was at one time used to verses—­acquainted with metre and rhythm, would account for the form adopted by your dream.  I assure you it was purely chance—­and that there is no significance in it!  You are on the look out for work, is it not so?”

“I am,” Lilian Rosenberg said.  “Can you tell me where to go to get it?”

“I am just thinking,” Kelson replied, “I believe my partner, Mr. Hamar, wants a secretary.  I can’t, of course, say whether you would suit him.  Do you type?”

“I can type and do shorthand,” Lilian Rosenberg replied eagerly, “and I can correspond in German and French.”

“And the salary?  Would two hundred a year do?”

“Yes,” after a slight pause, “I could make it do.  I should want one half-day holiday—­from one o’clock—­every week; and Sundays—­and three weeks’ holiday in the summer, and one at Christmas, and of course, the usual Bank Holidays.”

“I see!” Kelson said thoughtfully; “you want plenty of time for amusement.  Well!  I will speak about it to Mr. Hamar, and if you leave me your address I will give it him.  How nicely you keep your hands.”

“I manicure them every day,” Lilian Rosenberg said; then looking up at him from under the long lashes which swept her cheeks, she added, “You won’t forget to tell Mr. Hamar about me, will you?  I am very anxious to get a post.  You don’t know what it is to be hard up, do you?”

The earnest, pleading expression in her long, dark eyes appealed to Kelson as nothing else had ever appealed to him.  Since his arrival in London, he had seen many pretty faces, many beautiful eyes, but assuredly none so lovely as these.  And what features! what teeth! what lips! what a chin! what a figure!  It seemed to him that she was not like an ordinary girl, that she was not of the same composition as any of the girls he had ever met; that she was something hardly human—­something elfish, something generated by the beautiful English woods and glades, filled with the soft glamour of the moon and stars.  And all the while he was thinking thus, his heart rising in rebellion against the words of Hamar, the girl continued gazing up at him, and toying with the rings on her slender, milk-white fingers.

At last he dare look at her no longer, but stammering out his promise to do all he could to get her the vacant post, he pressed her hand gently, and bade her good morning.