"Then the dream is a warning?"
Kelson was about to reply, when the door opened, and Hamar, with an apology for intruding, beckoned to him.
He spoke with him for several moments relative to a matter of some consequence, and then, glancing at Miss Rosenberg, and drawing Kelson still further aside, whispered, "Let me caution you again, Matt. On no account let your soft feelings with regard to the other sex get the better of you. Remember it is imperative for us to do evil not good—to lead our clients into temptation, not out of it. I am doing my best to follow the injunctions of the Unknown, but we must all work in harmony—that is the most vital point in our compact, and you know if we do not keep the compact something frightful will happen to us. I can't impress this fact on you too much. Only yesterday I had to pull you up for giving good advice to a lady. Damn your good advice, give bad—bad advice, I say; anything that will do people harm—no matter whether they are ugly or pretty—and if you are not jolly well careful, pretty girls will be your—and our—undoing. I see you have a pretty girl here now—and from what I can read in her face, she is not a saint. Rub it in to her—rub it into her well—persuade her to be a bigger sinner still. Now I can't wait to say more, I must go."
"I asked you," Lilian Rosenberg said, as Kelson resumed his seat, "if the dream was a warning?"
"No," Kelson said, "I shouldn't take it as such. Despite the rather peculiar form it took, I am inclined to think it isn't a dream with any real significance—but merely a chance dream—a dream compounded of sayings and actions of the past that have come back to you all higgledy-piggledy, as they so often do in dreams. You learned a lot of poetry I suppose when you were at school?"
"Yes, but none like this."
"No, I didn't suppose so, but the mere fact that your mind was at one time used to verses—acquainted with metre and rhythm, would account for the form adopted by your dream. I assure you it was purely chance—and that there is no significance in it! You are on the look out for work, is it not so?"
"I am," Lilian Rosenberg said. "Can you tell me where to go to get it?"
"I am just thinking," Kelson replied, "I believe my partner, Mr. Hamar, wants a secretary. I can't, of course, say whether you would suit him. Do you type?"
"I can type and do shorthand," Lilian Rosenberg replied eagerly, "and I can correspond in German and French."