Fenella entered the office as a princess shod in satin might enter a pigsty.  Her ermine-trimmed gown was raised with both her hands, her delightful nose had a distinct tilt and her lips a curl.  But when she saw Arnold, a wonderful smile transformed her face.  She was in the middle of the clerk’s office, the cynosure of twenty-four staring eyes, but she dropped her gown and held out both her delicately gloved hands.  The fall of her skirts seemed to shake out strange perfumes into the stuffy room.

“Ah! you are really here, then, in this odious gloom?  You will show me where I can find my husband?”

Arnold stepped back and threw open the door of the inner office.  She laughed into his face.

“Do not go away,” she ordered.  “Come in with me.  I want to thank you for looking after me the other day.”

Arnold murmured a few words of excuse and turned away.  Mr. Tidey Junior carefully arranged his necktie and slipped down from his stool.

“Jarvis,” he exclaimed, “a free lunch and my lifetime’s gratitude if you’ll send me into the governor’s office on any pretext whatever!”

Mr. Jarvis, who was answering the telephone, took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and wiped them.

“Some one must go in and say that Mr. Burland, of Harris & Burland, wishes to know at what time he can see the governor.  I think you had better let Chetwode go, though.”

The young man turned away, humming a tune.

“Not I!” he replied.  “Don’t be surprised, you fellows, if I am not out just yet.  The governor’s certain to introduce me.”

He knocked at the door confidently and disappeared.  In a very few seconds he was out again.  His appearance was not altogether indicative of conquest.

“Governor says Burland can go to the devil, or words to that effect,” he announced, ill-naturedly.  “Chetwode, you’re to take in the private cheque book....  I tell you what, Jarvis,” he added, slowly resuming his stool, “the governor’s not himself these days.  The least he could have done would have been to introduce me, especially as he’s been up at our place so often.  Rotten form, I call it.  Anyway, she’s not nearly so good-looking close to.”

Mr. Jarvis proceeded to inform the inquirer through the telephone that Mr. Weatherley was unfortunately not to be found at the moment.  Arnold, with Mr. Weatherley’s cheque book in his hand, knocked at the door of the private office and closed the door carefully behind him.  As he stood upon the threshold, his heart gave a sudden leap.  Mr. Weatherley was sitting in his accustomed chair, but his attitude and expression were alike unusual.  He was like a man shrinking under the whip.  And Fenella—­he was quick enough to catch the look in her face, the curl of her lips, the almost wicked flash of her eyes.  Yet in a moment she was laughing.

“Your cheque book, Mr. Weatherley,” he remarked, laying it down upon the desk.