This set her smiling. "I had the advantage to begin with of not knowing who you were."
"And that gave you a start."
"No, finding you out gave me the start."
"You certainly have not lost time."
"That I cannot say, till I have your answer." There was no temporizing here.
Max thought for a while, then drew breath and spoke. "I want you quite to understand," he said, "that if I take up this work it will be very largely for a personal reason. I daresay I shall, as you say, 'take fire' when I know more about it; but at present I am not so moved. Commissions do not attract me; and what I undertake I shall do solely on faith—faith in you. Are you content that it should be so?"
"For a beginning, yes."
"Very well; something else follows. I shall need you for my guide."
"I am always here at certain hours," she said. "But there are others who know far more than I."
He let that point go unregarded.