Page:The council of seven.djvu/62

 Should he accept it? Why not? His attitude of slightly contemptuous indifference towards women in general was his attitude towards this woman, but she was a mine of information, and she made a hobby of gracing her table with the most interesting people in Europe. And for those alive to the lure of sex, her power of attraction was undoubted. Few men would have denied that Rose Carburton was, in her way, a siren.

Mr. Hartz was still in the valley of decision, this letter in hand, when Helen Sholto came into the room. Some two years before, on one of his brief but frequent trips across the Atlantic, he had found this remarkably able girl doing odd jobs in the New York office. Taken at once by her personality, he had brought her to London as one of several confidential secretaries, to whom, however, he never opened his mind; and in a post that was no sinecure she had discovered a feminine quick-thinking competence that had proved of high value. Moreover, Helen herself, with her charm, her high spirits, her good looks, seemed to relieve even the gloom and the grime of Cosmos Alley.

The great man had this morning, as usual, a cordial greeting, a benign smile, to offer her. But it hardly called for his abnormal powers of observation to see at once that something was wrong. His greeting was returned with a slight bow. Her face was grave and set. And in prompt response to the question in his