you come here to improve your acquaintance with the interior of my sitting room?" Josephine asked, a little irritated at last by his silence.
He shook his head.
"I should say not. I came, Lady Dredlinton, to talk to you about your husband."
"Then if you will allow me to say so," Josephine replied, "you have come upon a very purposeless errand. I do not discuss my husband with any one, for reasons which I think we need not go into."
Peter Phipps leaned forward in his chair. It was a favourite attitude of his, and one which had won him many successes.
"See here, Lady Dredlinton," he began, "you don't like me. That's my misfortune, but it don't affect the matter as it stands at present between us. I have a kindly feeling for your husband, and I have—a feeling for you which I won't at present presume to refer to."
"Perhaps," Josephine said calmly, "you had better not."
"That feeling," Phipps went on, "has brought me here this afternoon. Your husband is not playing the game with us any more than he is with you."
"What do you know—"
"Let's cut that out, shall we," he interrupted, "Let's talk like a sensible man and woman. Do you want us to drop your husband out of the B. & I. Board?"
"Nothing would give me greater pleasure," Josephine assured him. "I cannot imagine why you ever put him on."
Peter Phipps was a little staggered.
"Perhaps you don't know," he said, "that your husband's salary for doing nothing is four thousand pounds a year."
"I suppose you think him worth that," Josephine answered coldly, "or you would not pay it."
"He is worth nothing at all," Phipps declared bluntly. "I put him on the Board and I am paying him four thousand a year for a reason which I am surprised you have never guessed."
"How on earth should I?" Josephine demanded. "I know nothing whatever about business. On the face of it, I should think you were mad."
"We will leave the reason for Lord Dredlinton's appointment alone for the moment," Phipps continued. "I imagined that it would be gratifying to you. I imagined that the four thousand a year would be of some account in your housekeeping."
"You were entirely wrong, then," Josephine replied. "Whatever Lord Dredlinton may draw from your company, he has kept. Not one penny of it has come to me, directly or indirectly."
Phipps was staggered. He did not doubt for a second, however, that he was listening to the truth.
"Say, this is the worst thing ever!" he declared. "Why, what do you suppose your husband does with the money?"
"I have no idea, nor have I any interest."
"Come, come!" Phipps murmured. "That's bad. Of course," he went on, his eyes narrowing a little as he watched his companion closely, as though to estimate the effect of his words, "of course, I knew that Lord Dredlinton had other interests in life besides his domestic ones, but I had no idea that he carried things to such a length."
Josephine glanced at the clock.
"Will you forgive my saying that up to the present you have not offered me any sufficient explanation as to the reason for your visit?"
"I was coming to it," he assured her. "To tell you the truth, you've rather cut the ground away from under my feet, I was coming to tell you that Lord Dredlinton had drawn money from the company to which he was not entitled, besides having overdrawn his salary to a considerable extent. The cashier has pointed out to me serious irregularities. I came to you to know what I was to do."
"I cannot conceive a person less able to advise you," she answered. "I have said before that my husband's connection with your company is one which I dislike extremely, and I should be delighted to hear that it was ended."
"If it were ended at the present moment," Phipps said slowly, "it would,
I fear, be under somewhat painful circumstances."
"What do you mean?" Josephine demanded.
"What I very much hate to put into plain words. Your husband has used money of the company's to which he has no right. I have been paying him four thousand a year, hoping that indirectly I was benefiting you. He has deceived me. I see no reason why I should spare him. The last money he drew from the company—his action in drawing it amounts to a criminal misdemeanour."
"Do you mean that you will prosecute him?"
"Why not?"
Josephine for the first time showed signs of disturbance.
"Is this what you came to tell me?" she asked.
"In a sense, yes!"
"What is the amount?"
"The specific amount in question is a thousand pounds."
"And do you want me to find it to save my husband from prison?"
Mr. Phipps was shocked.
"My dear lady," he protested, "you have utterly and entirely misunderstood me."
"I am not so sure about that," she answered.
"You have misunderstood me if you imagine for a moment that I came here to ask you to make up the amount of your husband's defalcations."
"What did you come for, then?"
"I came," Peter Phipps declared, "entirely out of consideration for you. I came to ask what you wished done, and to do it. I came to assure you of my sympathy; if you will accept it, my friendship; and if you will further honour me by accepting it, my help."
"Just how do you propose to help me?" Josephine enquired.
"Just in the way," he answered, "that a man to whom money is of no account may sometimes help a woman for whom he has a most profound, a most sincere, a most respectful admiration".
"You came, in fact," Josephine said, "to place your bank account at my disposal?"
"I would never have ventured," he protested, "to have put the matter so crudely. I came to express my admiration for you and my desire to help you."
"And in return?"
"I do not bargain. Lady Dredlinton," Phipps said slowly. "I must confess that if you could regard me with a little more toleration, if you would accept at any rate a measure of my friendship, would endeavour, may I say, to adopt a more sympathetic attitude with regard to me, it would give me the deepest pleasure."
Josephine shook her head.
"Mr. Phipps," she said, "you have the name of being a very hard-headed and shrewd business man. You come here offering my husband's honour and your banking account. I could not possibly accept these things from a person to whom I can make no return. If you will let me know the exact amount of my husband's defalcation, I will try
