If Miss Winthrop ever had more than a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Pendleton, she gave no indication of that fact when she came in the next morning. With a face as blank as a house closed for the season, she clicked away at her typewriter until noon, and then hurried out to lunch as if that were a purely business transaction also. Don followed a little sooner than usual. The little restaurant was not at all crowded to-day, but she was not there. He waited ten minutes, and as he waited the conviction grew that she did not intend to come.

Don went out and began an investigation. He visited five similar places in the course of the next fifteen minutes, and in the last one he found her. She was seated in a far corner, and she was huddled up as if trying to make herself as inconspicuous as possible. As he strode to her side with uplifted hat, she shrank away like a hunted thing finding itself trapped.

“What did you run away for?” he demanded.

“What did you hunt me up for?” she replied.

“Because I wanted to see you.”

“And I came here because I did not want to see you.”

“Now, look here––” he began.

“So I should think you’d go along and leave me alone,” she interrupted.

“If I did that, then I’d never know what the trouble is all about,” he explained.

“Well, what of it?”

“May I sit down?”

There was an empty chair next to her.

“I can’t prevent you, but I’ve told you I want to be alone.”

“When you look that way, you’re just as much alone as if I weren’t here,” he returned, as he took the chair. “And every one knows it.”

She gave a swift glance about the room, as if expecting to find half the crowd looking at her.

“Maybe they are too polite to let on,” he continued; “but I know just what they are 95 saying to themselves. They are saying, ‘She certainly hasn’t much use for him. You’d think he’d take the tip and get out.’”

“You don’t seem to care much, then, about what they say.”

“I don’t care a hang,” he admitted.

She pushed her plate away as if ready to go.

“Wait a minute,” he pleaded. “It doesn’t seem like you to go off and leave a man in the dark. How in thunder am I going to know any better next time if you don’t tell me where I made the break?”

“I don’t believe you’d know if I did tell you,” she answered more gently.

“The least you can do is to try.”

She did not want to tell him. If he was sincere––and the longer she talked with him, the more convinced she was that this was the case––then she did not wish to disillusionize him.

“The least you can do is to give me a chance,” he persisted.

“The mistake came in the beginning, Mr. Pendleton,” she said, with an effort. “And it was all my fault. You––you seemed so different from a lot of men who come into the 96 office that I––well, I wanted to see you get started straight. In the three years I’ve been there I’ve picked up a lot of facts that aren’t much use to me because––because I’m just Miss Winthrop. So I thought I could pass them on.”

“That was mighty white of you,” he nodded.

The color flashed into her cheeks.

“I thought I could do that much without interfering in any other way with either of our lives.”

“Well?”

“There were two or three things I didn’t reckon with,” she answered.

“What were they?” he demanded.

“Blake is one of them.”

“Blake?” His face brightened with sudden understanding. “Then the trouble is all about that box of candy?”

“You shouldn’t have sent it. You should have known better than to send it. You––had no right.”

“But that was nothing. You were so darned good to me about the typewriting and it was all I could think of.”

“So, you see,” she concluded, “it won’t do. It won’t do at all.”

“I don’t see,” he returned.

“Then it’s because you didn’t see the way Blake looked at me,” she said.

“Yes, I saw,” he answered. “I could have hit him for it. But I fixed that.”

“You––fixed that?” she gasped.

“I certainly did. I told him I sent the box, and told him why.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Then they’ll all know, and––what am I going to do? Oh, what am I going to do?”

It was a pitiful cry. He did not understand why it was so intense, because he did not see what she saw––the gossip increasing in maliciousness; the constant watching and nods and winks, until in the end it became intolerable either to her or to Farnsworth. Nor was that the possible end. To leave an office under these conditions was a serious matter––a matter so serious as to affect her whole future.

“Now, see here,” he pleaded. “Don’t take it so hard. You’re making too much of it. Blake isn’t going to talk any more. If he does––”

She raised her head.

“If he does, there isn’t anything you can do about it.”

“I’ll bet there is.”

“No––no––no. There isn’t. I know! But you mustn’t come here any more. And you mustn’t talk to me any more. Then perhaps they’ll forget.”

He grew serious.

“It seems too bad if it’s got to be that way,” he answered.

“I ought to have known,” she said.

“And I ought to have known, too. I was a fool to send that box into the office, but I wanted you to get it before you went home.”

She raised her eyes to his a moment. Then a queer, tender expression softened her mouth.

“This is the end of it,” she answered. “And now I’m glad you did not know any better.”

She rose to go, and then she noticed that he had not lunched.

“I’ll wait here until you come back with your sandwich,” she said.

“I don’t want a sandwich,” he protested.

“Please hurry.”

So she waited there until he came back with his lunch, and then she held out her hand to him.

“To-morrow you go to the old place,” she said, “and I’ll come here.”