the number of their shelf, and their place on the
shelves."

Their place on the shelves indeed! If those books had got into Dicky
Pilkington's clutches their place would know them no more. He
wondered; did she know nothing about Dicky Pilkington? Her plan
implied certainty of possession, the permanence of the Harden Library
world without end. He wondered whether he ought not to remind her that
it might be about to come into the market, if it were not already as
good as sold?

"Besides the cataloguing I want notes on all the rare or remarkable
books. I believe some of them are unique."

He wondered more and more, and ended by wondering whether Dicky
Pilkington were really so sure of his game?

"I see. You want a catalogue _raisonne_."

"I want something like this." She opened a drawer and showed him one
of Rickman's Special Quarterly Catalogues of a year back. He
remembered; it used to be sent regularly to old Sir Joseph Harden,
their best customer.

"My grandfather said these catalogues were models of their kind--they
could only have been done by a scholar. He wanted the library
catalogued on the same lines. It was to have been done in his
lifetime--"

"I wish it had been. I should have liked to have worked for Sir Joseph
'Arden."

Stirred by the praise, and by a sudden recollection of Sir Joseph, he
spoke with a certain emotion, so that an aitch went by the board.

"Are you quite sure," said she, "that you know all about this sort of
work?"

Had she noticed that hideous accident? And did it shake her belief in
his fitness for the scholarly task?

"This _is_ my work. I made that catalogue. I have to make them every
quarter, so it keeps my hand in."

"Are you a quick worker?"

"Yes, I can be pretty quick."

"Could you finish my catalogue by the twenty-seventh? That's a little
more than three weeks."

"Well--it would depend rather on the number of notes you wanted. Let
me see--there must be about fourteen or fifteen thousand books here--"

"There are fifteen thousand."

"It would take three weeks to make an ordinary catalogue; and that
would be quick work, even for me. I'm afraid you must give me rather
more time."

"I can't. I'm leaving England on the twenty-sixth."

"Couldn't I go on with it in your absence?"

"No, that would hardly do."

"If you could only give me another week--"

"I couldn't possibly. I have to join my father at Cannes on the
twenty-seventh."

So she was Sir Frederick