smiled at him and shook her
head. "You were real kind about the play," said she, "but the play's all
over now. I guess you'd better tell your friend that I'll take the
position. I have been getting pretty tired of work in the store and I'd
like to try this if he don't mind."

"Oh, but you mustn't go into it like that," Burgess protested, "just for
the want of something better. Acting is an art--a great art--you must be
glad and proud."

"I'll try it," she said without enthusiasm. "If you feel that way about
it I'll try it. It can't be worse than the store. The store is just
horrible. Oh! Mr. Burgess you can't think what it is to be Ophelia in
the evening with princes loving you and then to be a cashier in the
day-time that any fresh customer thinks he can get gay with. Maybe if I
was an actress I could be Ophelia oftener. I'd do anything, Mr. Burgess,
to get away from the store."

Burgess did not answer immediately. Her earnestness had rather overcome
her and he waited silently while she walked to the window, surreptitiously
pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and conquered
the sobs that threatened to choke her. Burgess watched her. The trimness
of her figure, the absolute neatness and propriety of her dress, the
poise and restraint of her manner. Then she turned and he rose to meet her.

"Mary," said he, "you never in all the time I've known you have failed
to do what I asked you. Will you do something for me now?"

"Yes, sir," she answered simply.

"Then sit down in that chair and take this watch of mine in your hand
and don't say one single, solitary, lonely word for five minutes. No
matter what happens: no matter what anyone says or does. Will you
promise?"

"Yes, sir," she answered again.

"Well then," he began, "I know another man who wants you--this stage
idea is not the only way out of the store. Remember you're not to
speak--this other man wants to marry you."

A scarlet flush sprang to Mary's face and slowly ebbed away again leaving
her deadly pale. She kept her word in letter but hardly in spirit for
she looked at him through tear-filled eyes, and shook her head.

"Of course you can't be expected to take to the idea just at first,"
said he, as if she had spoken, "but I want you to think it over. The man
is a well-off, gentlemanly sort of chap. Miles too old for you of
course--for you're not twenty and he's nearly forty--but I think he
would make you happy. I know he'd try with all the stren