She answered yes to all these questions and awaited her dismissal, but Mr. Smith had much more to say. He was a small, dry man, almost concealed by the great chair in which he sat, but his eyes were startlingly keen, and they never left Theresa's face. It was her own habit to fix people in this manner, and she expected it of others, so she sat, coolly interested, wearing that hint of a smile which was an inheritance from her mother, proof, in Theresa, of a shy enjoyment.
With a courtesy and shrewdness of which she was quite aware, he led her willingly into a self-revealing conversation. He learnt her age, the occupation of her father, her relationship to George Webb—"Harmonium George, we call him," he said with a twinkle—and many of her characteristics. She helped him freely in his discoveries, but she did it with a skill greater than his own.
"Very well," he said, as he rose, "if Mr. Partiloe——By the way, why did you leave Mr. Partiloe?"
"I had been there three years."
"Decent chap, isn't he? Decent pay? Why did you want to go, then?"
She thought for an instant. "It was a very stuffy office," she said.
"Ah, yes—yes. They are sometimes." He rang the bell. "Will you take a glass of wine before you go? Excellent port? No? Well, let me show you my flowers."
He took her through his conservatory, gave her a spray of heliotrope, and escorted her to the gate.
Two days later she had a letter signed by John Neville, asking her to begin her duties as Mr. Smith's under-secretary at eight o'clock on the following Monday morning.
Simon Smith's charities were exclusively his own. He seldom gave to hospitals, never to missionaries, and all organized societies had learnt that they were his detestation, that though he might consider individual cases they brought to his notice, he would never spend a penny on anything in which he had not a hand.