“Yes.”
“I was wondering if you would care to undertake a work for me.”
“I should be glad to do anything,” she said anxiously.
“I have some thousands of books in the villa. Those I have collected myself I know—they are all in the library—but there are many that were left me by my father, and others that came from an uncle, and they are all piled up in heaps in the empty rooms on the second floor. I want someone to sort them out, catalogue, and arrange them for me. Would you care to do it?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“That’s all right then,” he said hastily. “I’ll get a carpenter in at once to put up some more shelves ready for them. And I think you had better stay on in the villa, if you don’t mind. It will be more convenient. The salary will be two hundred lire a month, paid in advance.”
“Your kindness—I can’t express my gratitude—” she began tremulously.
“Nonsense! This is a business transaction, and I am coming out of it very well. I should not get a man to do the work for that absurdly small sum. I am underpaying you on purpose because I hate women.”
Olive laughed. “Commend me to misogynists henceforth.”
She wanted to begin at once, but her host assured her that he would rather she waited until the shelves were put up.