The secretary, bending respectfully over, ran a fresh white-nailed finger down the Agony Column, and stopped it at a three-line advertisement:—
“Lady (young) a victim to persecution, seeks honourable employment to extricate her from pressing difficulties. Good typewriter and linguist. Address Viatrix, Rufus Cottage, Knight’s Hill, West Norwood.”
Gilead read and considered, his hand thoughtfully caressing his chin. Then he looked up.
“You think it promising?” he said.
The secretary, withdrawn a little, deferred to his employer.
“If I am right, sir, in interpreting your mood.”
Gilead reflected.
“There has been a monotony, I admit, hitherto,” he said. “You differentiate this, somehow, from the others?”
“It is, if I may use the expression, sir, manly—no cringing. There are tokens of culture; and the hint of persecution, the mystery, puts it in another category. Certainly it is a lady—and young.”
“You have misread me, Nestle,” said his master, “if you can hint that as an objection. I should be a useless agent in this business were I constitutionally susceptible. The sex has never more than an abstract attraction for me, and any desire I may have to possess it is limited to its idealised presentments in art.”