shall scratch out your
mark," she said sternly, "if I hear any more talk of that sort."

Jack gathered his keys together with a strong sense of injury, and put
them back in his leather bag. "You're a little hard on me," he said, "when
I'm only warning you for your own good. I don't know why it is, you're
not as kind to me here, as you used to be in London. And I feel it, I
do!" He laid himself down on the window seat, and began to cry.

Mrs. Wagner was not the woman to resist this expression of the poor
little man's feeling. In a moment she was at the window comforting him
and drying his eyes, as if he had been a child. And, like a child, Jack
took advantage of the impression that he had made. "Look at your desk,"
he said piteously; "there's another proof how hard you are on me. I used
to keep the key of your desk in London. You won't trust it to me here."

Mrs. Wagner went to the desk, locked it, and returned to Jack. Few people
know how immensely an act of kindness gains in effect, by being performed
in silence. Mrs. Wagner was one of the few. Without a word, she opened
the leather bag and dropped the key into it. Jack's gratitude rushed
innocently to an extreme which it had never reached yet. "Oh!" he cried,
"would you mind letting me kiss you?"

Mrs. Wagner drew back, and held up a warning hand. Before she could
express herself in words, Jack's quick ear caught the sound of footsteps
approaching the door. "Is she coming back?" he cried, still suspicious of
Madame Fontaine. Mrs. Wagner instantly opened the door, and found herself
face to face with Joseph the footman.

"Do you know, ma'am, when Mr. Keller will be back?" he asked.

"I didn't even know that he was out, Joseph. Who wants him?"

"A gentleman, ma'am, who says he comes from Munich."

CHAPTER VII

On further inquiry, it turned out that "the gentleman from Munich" had no
time to spare. In the absence of Mr. Keller, he had asked if he could see
"one of the other partners." This seemed to imply that commercial
interests were in some way connected with the stranger's visit--in which
case, Mrs. Wagner was perfectly competent to hear what he had to say.

"Where is the gentleman?" she asked.

"In the drawing-room," Joseph answered.

Mrs. Wagner at once left the office. She found herself in the presence of
a dignified elderly gentleman, dressed entirely in black, and having the
ribbon of some order of merit attached to the buttonhole of his long
fro