[Illustration: "THANK YOU, MONSIEUR," SHE SAID, TAKING THE HANDKERCHIEF FROM MY HAND.]
"Thank you, Monsieur," she said, taking the handkerchief from my hand. It was evident that she did not recognise me as the stranger who had accosted her father on the previous day.
I explained my business in as few words as possible.
"The servant," I added, "made a mistake in bringing me to this room. I did not mean to trouble Mademoiselle; my business is with M. de Clericy. I am applying for the post of secretary."
She looked at me with a quick surprise, and her eyes lighted on my clothes with some significance, which made me think that perhaps Monsieur de Clericy gave less even than two hundred pounds a year to his amanuensis.
"Ah!" she said, with her thought apparent in her candid eyes. "My father is at present in his study--engaged, I believe, with Monsieur Miste."
"Miste?" I echoed, for the name was no less peculiar than her way of pronouncing it. She seemed to look for some sign that I knew this man.
"Ah! a secretary--a man-machine that writes."
She shook her head with a happy laugh, sinking, as it were, into an air of interest, which gave a sharp feeling that I had perhaps been forestalled in other matters by the man called Miste. She looked at me with such candid eyes, however, that the thought seemed almost a sacrilege, offered gratuitously to innocence and trustfulness. Her face was, indeed, a guarantee that if her maiden fancy had been touched, her heart was at all events free from that deeper feeling which assuredly leaves its mark upon all who suffer it.
The name of Monsieur de Clericy's former secretary in some way grated on my hearing, so that instead of retiring from the presence of mademoiselle as my manners bade me do, I lingered, seeking opportunity to continue the conversation.
"I do not wish to intrude on Monsieur de Clericy," I said. "It is perhaps inexpedient that the new machine should be seen of the old."
Mademoiselle laughed, and again I caught the deep silver note of sympathy in her voice that was so new and yet familiar. In laughter the soul surely speaks.
"The word scarcely describes Monsieur Miste," retorted she.
For a moment she reflected. She was without self-consciousness, and spoke with me, a stranger, as easily as she talked to her father.