what she had actually said.

Her letter? He murmured some sort of assent, and entered on a dreamy
and protracted search for his pocket handkerchief. He was miserably
conscious that she was looking, looking down on him all the time. For
this lady was tall, so tall indeed that her gaze seemed to light on
his eyelids rather than his eyes. When he had found his courage and
his handkerchief he looked up and their eyes met half way. Hers were
brown with the tinge of hazel that makes brown eyes clear; they had a
liquid surface of light divided from their darkness, and behind the
darkness was more light, and the light and darkness were both
unfathomable.

These eyes were entirely unembarrassed by the encounter. They still
swept him with their long gaze, lucid, meditative, and a little
critical.

"You have been very prompt."

"We understood that no time was to be lost."

She hesitated. "Mr. Rickman understood, did he not, that I asked for
some one with experience?"

Most certainly Mr. Rickman understood.

"Do you think you will be able to do what I want?"

Her eyes implied that he seemed to her too young to have had any
experience at all.