“Lord, no!  One has only to look at you.”

Diana laughed outright.

“That’s quite the nicest compliment I’ve ever received, Mr. Leigh,” she said.

(It was odd that while Errington always made her feel rather small and depressingly young, with Jerry Leigh she felt herself to be quite a woman of the world.)

“It isn’t a compliment,” protested Jerry stoutly.  “It’s just the plain, unvarnished truth.”

“I’m afraid your ‘boss’ wouldn’t agree with you.”

“Oh, nonsense!”

“Indeed it isn’t.  He always treats me as though I were a hot potato, and he were afraid of burning his fingers.”

Jerry roared.

“Well, perhaps he’s got good reason.”

Diana shook; her head smilingly.

“Oh, no.  It’s not that.  Mr. Errington doesn’t like me.”

Jerry stared at her reflectively.

“That couldn’t be true,” he said at last, with conviction.

“I don’t know that I like him—­very much—­either,” pursued Diana.

“You would if you really knew him,” said the boy eagerly.  “He’s one of the very best.”

“He’s rather a mysterious person, don’t you think?”

Jerry regarded her very straightly.

“Oh, well,” he returned bluntly, “every man’s a right to have his own private affairs.”

Then there was something!

Diana felt her heart beat a little faster.  She had thrown out the remark as the merest feeler, and now his own secretary, the man who must be nearer to him than any other, had given what was tantamount to an acknowledgment of the fact that Errington’s life held some secret.

“Anyway”—­Jerry was speaking again—­“I’ve got good reason to be grateful to him.  I was on my uppers when he happened along—­and without any prospect of re-soling.  I’d played the fool at Monte Carlo, and, like a brick, he offered me the job of private secretary, and I’ve been with him ever since.  I’d no references, either—­he just took me on trust.”

“That was very kind of him,” said Diana slowly.

“Kind!  There isn’t one man in a hundred who’ll give a chance like that to a young ass that’s played the goat as I did.”

“No,” agreed Diana.  “But,” she added, rather low, “he isn’t always kind.”

At this moment the door opened, and the subject of their conversation entered the room.  He paused on the threshold, and for an instant Diana could have sworn that as his eyes met her own a sudden light of pleasure flashed into their blue depths, only to be immediately replaced by his usual look of cold indifference.  He glanced round the room, apparently somewhat surprised to find Diana and his secretary its sole occupants.

“We’re all here now except our hostess,” observed the latter cheerfully, following his thought.

“So it seems.  I didn’t know”—­looking across from Jerry to Diana in a puzzled way—­“that you two were acquainted with each other.”