“Yes, Mr. Lucas,” she said. “I’m settled upon settling.”
“Ah!” her employer smiled. “Then I am going to ask you to learn the office code.”
“Code?” repeated Cis.
“We are often involved in cases which would be disastrous to great interests if they were known to the public. The mails are safe enough, and yet, like all human arrangements, they may sometimes miscarry. Mr. Henderson; our senior clerk, Mr. Saunders; our office in Chicago, and Washington, and myself use a code in relation to these affairs known only to the principals in our Chicago and Washington offices, and the three persons in this office whom I have mentioned. We have decided to have you learn the code, to use it when occasion arises in correspondence with our other two offices. Will you learn this code, Miss Adair, and are you willing to give your solemn pledge that under no circumstances, to no human being, will you ever disclose it?” Mr. Lucas explained, and waited for Cicely’s reply.
She looked at him with widening eyes, her brilliant eyes, dark, of a color that was hard to determine, varying with her mood and as the light struck into them.
“Sounds like a dandy detective story!” Cis said involuntarily. “Yes, I’ll learn the code, provided I can learn it, and of course I’ll never teach it to anyone else. How do I learn it?”
“It is set down in a sort of chart; you will study it here, of course; the chart must not go out of the office. There is an alphabet connected with it; I am afraid that you will find it troublesome, but I should like you to master it. By the way, my brother has become a Roman Catholic; his family is brought up in that religion; do you happen to be a Romanist?” Mr. Lucas frowned slightly as he asked the question.
“Yes, Mr. Lucas; I’m a Catholic,” said Cis. “Why, please?”
“Always running to confession? Asking advice of the priest on every known and unknown point, I suppose! What about the code and its secrecy?” said Mr. Lucas.
Cis laughed outright. “Never asked a priest’s advice on anything in all my life; don’t go to confession more than twice a year. I don’t know what you mean about the code, Mr. Lucas,” she said.