The Priceless Pearl

								

appearance of these young women. "What system did you mark them on,
Griggs?" he asked, but got no further, for the door opened and Miss
Exeter entered, and Griggs, with his unfailing discretion, left.
Wood looked at her and saw that Griggs as usual had been exactly
right--she was neither more nor less than pleasing--a small, slim, pale
girl, whose unremarkable brown eyes radiated a steady intelligence.
Wood had employed labor in many parts of the world, from Chile to
China, and he had a routine about it--a preliminary intelligence test,
which he applied.
"Sit down, Miss Exeter," he said. "I think it will save us both time if
you will tell me all that you know about this position"--this was the
test--"and then I'll fill in."
Augusta sat down. She found herself a trifle nervous. This man
impressed her, for since her childhood she had cherished a secret
romantic admiration for men who exercised any form of power--kings and
generals and men of great affairs. It was a feeling that had nothing to
do with real life and represented no disloyalty to her fiancé, Horace
Bayne, who exercised no power of any kind.
One reason why it had had no relation to life was that she had not met
any men of this type. Even in the outer office she had been impressed
by the sense of a man waited on and protected by secretaries and
office boys as an Eastern princess is waited upon by slaves. And now
when she saw him she saw that he had exactly the type of looks she
admired most--tall, a little too thin, his face tanned to that shade of
café au lait that the blond Anglo-Saxon acquires under the sun--those
piercing bright-blue eyes--that large handsome hand, which, with the
thumb in his waistcoat pocket, was so clearly outlined against the blue
serge of his clothes.
She said rather uncertainly, "I know that Mrs. Conway is a widow with
three children----"
Even this much was wrong.
"Not, a widow," he said; "divorced."
"----with three children," Augusta went on; "a girl of seventeen, a boy
of fifteen and a little girl of eleven. I know that during your absence
you want someone to take the care and responsibility of the children
off your sister's shoulders."
He smiled--his teeth seemed to have the extraordinary whiteness that is
the compensation of a dark skin.
"I see," he said, "that Griggs has been discreet again." He glanced
at his watch. "I'm going to Mexico in a few hours, Miss Exeter. I
have just twenty-five minutes. If in that time I am not thoroughly
indiscreet I can't look to you for any help. The situation is this:
My sister married Gordon Conway when she was very young--eighteen; he
turned out to be a gambler. I don't know whether you've ever known any
gamblers"--Miss Exeter never had--"but they are a peculiar breed--the
real ones--charming--friendly--gay--open-handed when they are winning;
they become the most inhuman devils in the world when they are losing.