"Two guineas a week; isn't it splendid?" The announcement seemed to startle Mr. Gibb out of the faculty of asking further questions. She went on. "And I have to thank you for it! Only think! if it hadn't been for you such luck never would have come my way; you dear, dear boy! I should like to kiss you for it; and I will!" And she did, quite heartily too, though she had to stoop to do it. "And out of my first two guineas I'll buy you something; what shall it be?"
"Nothing you could buy could ever equal what you've given me."
"What I've given you? what have I given you?"
"A kiss; I never shall forget you kissed me as long as I live."
"Eustace, you are--you are a queer boy!"
She went out, all blushes. When she had gone Mr. Gibb did what his employer had done; he stared at the door through which she had passed.
"Well, I call this of the nature of a startler; she must have knocked him. His jobbing secretary! What's he going to find for her to do, when there's nothing for him to do? or, for the matter of that, for me either. And two guineas a week! When the other day he sent me out to change his last fiver, and told me he'd have to make it do till quarter day, and there's still three weeks to that. Looks to me as if he'd rather overdone it."
The door of Mr. Hooper's room was opened; his voice was heard.
"Mr. Gibb, come in here!" Mr. Gibb went in there.