"I shall begin to think," he said, a little querulously, "that you don't
read the newspapers. My secretary, according to that portion of the
Press which guarantees to provide full value for the smallest copper
coin, has 'disappeared'."
"Really?" she exclaimed. "He or she?"
"He--the Honourable Anthony Palliser by name, son of Stobart Palliser,
who was at Eton with me."
She nodded.
"I expect I know his mother. What exactly do you mean by
'disappeared'?"
Tallente was looking out of the window. A slight hardness had crept
into his tone and manner. He had the air of one reciting a story.
"The young man and I differed last Tuesday night," he said. "In the
language of the novelists, he walked out into the night and disappeared.
Only an hour before dinner, too. Nothing has been heard of him since."
"What a fatuous thing to do!" she remarked. "Shall you have to get
another secretary?"
"Presently," he assented. "Just for the moment I am rather enjoying
doing nothing."
She leaned back amongst the cushions of her chair and looked across at
him with interest, an interest which presently drifted into sympathy.
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