Lady Carrados signed her name and hunted about the counterpane for blotting-paper. Miss Harris instantly placed her own pad on the bed.

“Oh,” said her employer with an air of pleased astonishment, “you’ve got some! Thank you so much. There, that’s settled her, hasn’t it?”

Miss Harris smiled brightly. Lady Carrados licked the flap of an envelope and stared at her secretary over the top.

“I see you’ve brought up my mail,” she said.

“Yes, Lady Carrados. I did not know if you would prefer me to open all—”

“No, no. No, please not.”

Miss Harris did not visibly bridle, she was much too competent to do anything of the sort, but she was at once hurt in her feelings. A miserable, a hateful, little needle of mortification jabbed her thin skin. She had overstepped her mark.

“Very well, Lady Carrados,” said Miss Harris politely.

Lady Carrados bent forward.

“I know I’m all wrong,” she said quickly. “I know I’m not behaving a bit as one should when one is lucky enough to have a secretary but, you see, I’m not used to such luxuries, and I still like to pretend I’m doing everything myself. So I shall have all the fun of opening my letters and all the joy of handing them over to you. Which is very unfair, but you’ll have to put up with it, poor Miss Harris.”

She watched her secretary smile and replied with a charming look of understanding.

“And now,” she said, “we may as well get it done, mayn’t we?”

Miss Harris laid the letters in three neat heaps on the writing-pad and soon began to make shorthand notes of the answers she was to write for her employer. Lady Carrados kept up a sort of running commentary.