ed for business
purposes. I hope you will not be offended, or consider that I
am impertinent in what I am going to say."

It sounds like the beginning of some scathing rebuke to the recipient of
the letter, doesn't it? But I don't think it's that. The letter goes on:

"Am writing to ask you whether you will allow me the privilege
of seeing you somewhere for a few minutes' private
conversation? It is on a matter that is of importance."

The last sentence is underlined, and looks most curiosity-rousing in
consequence:

"If you would allow me to know when I might see you, and where,
I should be very greatly obliged. Believe me,

"Yours very truly,
Reginald Brace."

That's the young manager, of course. That's the fair-haired young man
who lives next door to us--to where we used to live in Putney; the young
man of the garden-hose and of the "rows" with my Aunt Anastasia, and of
the bank that looks after Miss Million's money!

Is it about Miss Million's money matters that he wishes to have this
"few minutes' private conversation"? Scarcely. He wouldn't come to Miss
Million's maid about that.

But what can he want to see me about? "A matter of importance." What can
this be?

I can't guess.... For an hour now I have been sitting in Miss Million's
room, with Miss Million's new possessions scattered about me, and the
scent still heavy in the air of those red carnations sent in by the
Honourable--the Disgraceful Jim Burke.

Opposite to the sofa on which I am sitting there hangs an oval mirror in
a very twiggly-wiggly gilt frame, wreathed with golden foliage held by a
little Cupid, who laughs at me over a plump golden shoulder, and seems
to point at my picture in the glass.

It shows a small, rather prettily built girl in a delicious black frock
and white apron, with her white butterfly-cap poised pertly on her
chestnut hair, and on her face a look of puzzled amusement.

It's really mysterious; but I can't make out the mystery. I shall have
to wait until I can ask that young man himself what he means by it all.

Now, as to "when and where" I am to see him.

Not here. I am not Miss Million. I can't invite my acquaintances to tea
and rattlesnake cocktails and gimlets and things in the Cecil lounge.
And I can scarcely ask her to let me have her own sitting-room for the
occasion.

Outside the hotel,