Page:The City of Masks (1918).djvu/143

Rh "I leave that entirely to you," said he, composedly. "You can persuade her, I'm sure."

"She is no fool. She is perfectly well aware that I don't require the services of a secretary, that I am quite able to manage my private affairs myself. She would see through me in a second. She is as proud as Lucifer. I don't like to think of what she would say to me. And if I were to offer to pay her one hundred dollars a month, she would—well, she would think I was losing my mind. She knows I—"

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, slapping his knee, his face beaming. "That's the ticket! That simplifies everything. Let her think you are losing your mind. From worry and overwork—and all that sort of thing. It's the very thing, Marchioness. She would drop everything to help you in a case like that."

"Well, of all the—" began the Marchioness, aghast.

"You can put it up to her something like this," he went on, enthusiastically. "Tell her you are on the point of having a nervous breakdown,—a sort of collapse, you know. You know how to put it, better than I do. You—"

"I certainly do not know how to put it better than you do," she cried, sitting up very straight.

"Tell her you are dreadfully worried over not being able to remember things,—mental strain, and all that sort of thing. May have to give up business altogether unless you can— Is it a laughing matter, Marchioness?" he broke off, reddening to the roots of his hair.

"You are delicious!" she cried, dabbing her eyes with a bit of a lace handkerchief. "I haven't laughed so heartily in months. Bless my soul, you'll have me tell-