“I would rather stand, thank you,” she replied.  “You seem to find your present occupation to your taste.  I should loathe it!”

“Never think of my own feelings,” Fenn said briskly, “when there’s a job to be done.  I wish you’d be a bit more friendly, though, Miss Abbeway.  Let me pull that chair up by the side of mine.  I like to have you near.  You know, I’ve been a bachelor for a good many years,” he went on impressively, “but a little homey place like this always makes me think of things.  I’ve nothing against marriage if only a man can be lucky enough to get the right sort of girl, and although advanced thinkers like you and me and some of the others are looking at things differently, nowadays, I wouldn’t mind much which way it was,” he confided, dropping his voice a little and laying his hand upon her arm, “if you could make up your mind—­”

She snatched her arm away, and this time even he could not mistake the anger which blazed in her eyes.

“Mr. Fenn,” she exclaimed, “why is it so difficult to make you understand?  I detest such liberties as you are permitting yourself.  And for the rest, my affections are already engaged.”

“Sounds a bit old-fashioned, that,” he remarked, scowling a little.  “Of course, I don’t expect—­”

“Never mind what you expect,” she interrupted, “Please go on with this search, if you are going to make one at all.  The vulgarity of the whole thing annoys me, and I do not for a moment suppose that the packet is here.”

“It wasn’t on Orden,” he reminded her sullenly.

“Then he must have sent it somewhere for safe keeping,” she replied.  “I had already given him cause to do so.”

“If he has, then amongst his correspondence there may be some indication as to where he sent it,” Fenn pointed out, with unabated ill-temper.  “If you don’t like the job, and you won’t be friendly, you’d better take the easy-chair and wait till I’m through.”

She sat down, watching him with angry eyes, uncomfortable, unhappy, humiliated.  She seemed to have dropped in a few hours from the realms of rarefied and splendid thought to a world of petty deeds.  Not one of her companion’s actions was lost upon her.  She watched him study with ill-concealed reverence a ducal invitation, saw him read through without hesitation a letter which she felt sure was from Julian’s mother.  And then: 

The change in the man was so startling, his muttered exclamation—­ so natural that its profanity never even grated.  His eyes seemed to be starting out of his head, his lips were drawn back from his teeth.  Blank, unutterable surprise held him, dumb and spellbound, as he stared at a half-sheet of type written notepaper.  She herself, amazed at his transformed appearance, found words for the moment impossible.  Then a queer change came into his expression.  His eyebrows drew closer together, his lips turned malevolently.  He pushed the paper underneath a pile of others and turned his head towards her.  Their eyes met.  There was something like fear in his.