The Green Rust | Page 9

various
departments when a hand touched her gently on the arm.
She turned in surprise to face Mr. Beale, looking particularly smart in a
well-fitting grey suit, a grey felt hat and a large bunch of violets in his
buttonhole.
"Excuse me, Miss Cresswell," he said pleasantly, "may I have one word
with you?"
She looked at him doubtfully.
"I rather wish you had chosen another time and another place, Mr.
Beale," she said frankly.
He nodded.

"I realize it is rather embarrassing," he said, "but unfortunately my
business cannot wait. I am a business man, you know," he smiled, "in
spite of my dissolute habits."
She looked at him closely, for she thought she detected a gentle
mockery behind his words, but he was not smiling now.
"I won't keep you more than two minutes," he went on, "but in that two
minutes I have a great deal to tell you. I won't bore you with the story
of my life."
This time she saw the amusement in his eyes and smiled against her
will, because she was not feeling particularly amused.
"I have a business in the city of London," he said, "and again I would
ask you to respect my confidence. I am a wheat expert."
"A wheat expert?" she repeated with a puzzled frown.
"It's a queer job, isn't it? but that's what I am. I have a vacancy in my
office for a confidential secretary. It is a nice office, the pay is good,
the hours are few and the work is light. I want to know whether you
will accept the position."
She shook her head, regarding him with a new interest, from which
suspicion was not altogether absent.
"It is awfully kind of you, Mr. Beale, and adds another to the debts I
owe you," she said, "but I have no desire to leave Punsonby's. It is work
I like, and although am sure you are not interested in my private
business"--he could have told her that he was very much interested in
her private business, but he refrained--"I do not mind telling you that I
am earning a very good salary and I have no intention or desire to
change my situation."
His eyes twinkled.
"Ah well, that's my misfortune," he said, "there are only two things I

can say. The first is that if you work for me you will neither be
distressed nor annoyed by any habits of mine which you may have
observed and which may perhaps have prejudiced you against me. In
the second place, I want you to promise me that if you ever leave
Punsonby's you will give me the first offer of your services."
She laughed.
"I think you are very funny, Mr. Beale, but I feel sure that you mean
what you say, and that you would confine your--er--little eccentricities
to times outside of business hours. As far as leaving Punsonby's is
concerned I promise you that I will give you the first offer of my
invaluable services if ever I leave. And now I am afraid I must run
away. I am awfully obliged to you for what you did for me last night."
He looked at her steadily in the eye.
"I have no recollection of anything that happened last night," he said,
"and I should be glad if your memory would suffer the same lapse."
He shook hands with her, lifted his hat and turned abruptly away, and
she looked after him till the boom of the clock recalled her to the fact
that the head of the firm of Punsonby was a stickler for punctuality.
She went into the great cloak-room and hung up her coat and hat. As
she turned to the mirror to straighten her hair she came face to face
with a tall, dark girl who had been eyeing her thoughtfully.
"Good morning," said Oliva, and there was in her tone more of
politeness than friendship, for although these two girls had occupied
the same office for more than a year, there was between them an
incompatibility which no length of acquaintance could remove.
Hilda Glaum was of Swiss extraction, and something of a mystery. She
was good looking in a sulky, saturnine way, but her known virtues
stopped short at her appearance. She neither invited nor gave
confidence, and in this respect suited Oliva, but unlike Oliva, she made
no friends, entered into none of the periodical movements amongst the

girls, was impervious to the attractions of the river in summer and of
the Proms in winter, neither visited nor received.
"'Morning," replied the girl shortly; then: "Have you been upstairs?"
"No--why?"
"Oh, nothing."
Oliva mounted to the floor where her little office was. She and Hilda
dealt with the registered mail, extracted and checked the money that
came