“Personal resentment,” said Neergard slowly, “never interferes with my business.  I take it, of course, that you have called upon a business matter.  Will you sit down?”

“Thank you; I have only a moment.  And what I am here for is to ask you, as Mr. Erroll’s friend, to use your influence on Mr. Erroll—­every atom of your influence—­to prevent him from ruining himself financially through his excesses.  I ask you, for his family’s sake, to discountenance any more gambling; to hold him strictly to his duties in your office, to overlook no more shortcomings of his, but to demand from him what any trained business man demands of his associates as well as of his employees.  I ask this for the boy’s sake.”

Neergard’s close-set eyes focussed a trifle closer to Selwyn’s, yet did not meet them.

“Mr. Selwyn,” he said, “have you come here to criticise the conduct of my business?”

“Criticise!  No, I have not.  I merely ask you—­”

“You are merely asking me,” cut in Neergard, “to run my office, my clerks, and my associate in business after some theory of your own.”

Selwyn looked at the man and knew he had lost; yet he forced himself to go on: 

“The boy regards you as his friend.  Could you not, as his friend, discourage his increasing tendency toward dissipation—­”

“I am not aware that he is dissipated.”

“What!”

“I say that I am not aware that Gerald requires any interference from me—­or from you, either,” said Neergard coolly.  “And as far as that goes, I and my business require no interference either.  And I believe that settles it.”

He touched a button; the man-servant appeared to usher Selwyn out.

The latter set his teeth in his under lip and looked straight and hard at Neergard, but Neergard thrust both hands in his pockets, turned squarely on his heel, and sauntered out of the room, yawning as he went.

It bid fair to become a hard day for Selwyn; he foresaw it, for there was more for him to do, and the day was far from ended, and his self-restraint was nearly exhausted!

An hour later he sent his card in to Rosamund Fane; and Rosamund came down, presently, mystified, flattered, yet shrewdly alert and prepared for anything since the miracle of his coming justified such preparation.

“Why in the world,” she said with a flushed gaiety perfectly genuine, “did you ever come to see me?  Will you please sit here, rather near me?—­or I shall not dare believe that you are that same Captain Selwyn who once was so deliciously rude to me at the Minster’s dance.”

“Was there not a little malice—­just a very little—­on your part to begin it?” he asked, smiling.