is not responsible. You should abjure such a journalistic vice as
picture papers."

"Why?" she laughed. "They lead to such pleasant surprises. I had been
led to believe, for instance, by studying the Daily Mirror, that you
were quite an elderly person with a squint."

"I am becoming self-conscious," he confessed. "Won't you come in?
There is a boy somewhere about the premises who can look after your
horse, and I shall be able to give you some tea as soon as Robert gets
back with the milk."

He cooeed to the boy, who came up from one of the lower shelves of
garden, and she followed him into the hall. He looked around him for a
moment in some perplexity.

"I wonder whether you would mind coming into my study?" he suggested.
"I am here quite alone for the present, and it is the only room I use."

She followed him down a long passage into a small apartment at the
extreme end of the house.

"You are like me," she said. "I keep most of my rooms shut up and live
in my den. A lonely person needs so much atmosphere."

"Rather a pigsty, isn't it?" he remarked, sweeping a heap of books from
a chair. "I am without a secretary just now--in fact," he went on, with
a little burst of confidence engendered by her friendly attitude, "we
are in a mess altogether."