e."

"Mr. Goble is out," said the long young man, plucking nervously at the
papers on the desk. Jill had affected him powerfully.

"Out!" She felt she had wronged the pimpled office-boy.

"We are not expecting him back this afternoon. Is there anything I can
do?"

He spoke tenderly. This weak-minded young man was thinking that he had
never seen anything like Jill before. And it was true that she was
looking very pretty, with her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling.
She touched a chord in the young man which seemed to make the world a
flower-scented thing, full of soft music. Often as he had been in love
at first sight before in his time, Otis Pilkington could not recall an
occasion on which he had been in love at first sight more completely
than now. When she smiled at him, it was as if the gates of heaven had
opened. He did not reflect how many times, in similar circumstances,
these same gates had opened before; and that on one occasion when they
had done so it had cost him eight thousand dollars to settle the case
out of court. One does not think of these things at such times, for
they strike a jarring note. Otis Pilkington was in love. That was all
he knew, or cared to know.

"Won't you take a seat, Miss...."

"Mariner," prompted Jill. "Thank you."

"Miss Mariner. May I introduce Mr. Roland Trevis?"

The man at the piano bowed. His black hair heaved upon his skull like
seaweed in a ground swell.

"My name is Pilkington. Otis Pilkington."

The uncomfortable silence which always follows introductions was
broken by the sound of the telephone-bell on the desk. Otis
Pilkington, who had moved out into the room and was nowhere near the
desk, stretched forth a preposterous arm and removed the receiver.

"Yes? Oh, will you say, please, that I have a conference at present."
Jill was to learn that people in the theatrical business never talked:
they always held conferences. "Tell Mrs. Peagrim that I shall be
calling later in the afternoon, but cannot be spared just now." He
replaced the receiver. "Aunt Olive's secretary," he murmured in a soft
aside to Mr. Trevis. "Aunt Olive wanted me to go for a ride." He
turned to Jill. "Excuse me. Is there anything I can do for you, Miss
Mariner?"

Jill's composure was now completely restored. This interview was
turning out so totally different from anything she had expected. The
atmosphere was cosy and social. She felt as if she were back in
Ovingdon Square, giving tea to