She neither smiled nor scintillated now, but wore an expression of amiable practicality as she presently said, receiving back the rent-notice as she spoke: "I thank you, sir, but it might seem strange to him to find his notice in the hands of a person who can claim no interest in the matter.

I shall have to attend to it myself." "Ah! little enchantress," thought her grave-faced listener, as he gave attention, "this, after all--ball and all--is the mood in which you look your very, very best"-- a fact which nobody knew better than the enchantress herself.
He walked beside her toward the open door leading back into the counting-room, and the dozen or more clerks, who, each by some ingenuity of his own, managed to secure a glimpse of them, could not fail to feel that they had never before seen quite so fair a couple.

But she dropped her veil, bowed M.Grandissime a polite "No farther," and passed out.
M.Grandissime walked once up and down his private office, gave the door a soft push with his foot and lighted a cigar.
The clerk who had before acted as usher came in and handed him a slip of paper with a name written on it.

M.Grandissime folded it twice, gazed out the window, and finally nodded.

The clerk disappeared, and Joseph Frowenfeld paused an instant in the door and then advanced, with a buoyant good-morning.
"Good-morning," responded M.Grandissime.
He smiled and extended his hand, yet there was a mechanical and preoccupied air that was not what Joseph felt justified in expecting.
"How can I serve you, Mr.Frhowenfeld ?" asked the merchant, glancing through into the counting-room.