nd in--"

"In other words, you 're getting Jim Blake out of the way, off on this
Binhart trail, while you work him out of the Department."

"No competent officer is ever worked out of this Department," parried
the First Deputy.

She sat for a silent and studious moment or two, without looking at
Copeland. Then she sighed, with mock plaintiveness. Her wistfulness
seemed to leave her doubly dangerous.

"Mr. Copeland, are n't you afraid some one might find it worth while to
tip Blake off?" she softly inquired.

"What would you gain?" was his pointed and elliptical interrogation.

She leaned forward in the fulcrum of light, and looked at him soberly.

"What is your idea of me?" she asked.

He looked back at the thick-lashed eyes with their iris rings of deep
gray. There was something alert and yet unparticipating in their
steady gaze. They held no trace of abashment. They were no longer
veiled. There was even something disconcerting in their lucid and
level stare.

"I think you are a very intelligent woman," Copeland finally confessed.

"I think I am, too," she retorted. "Although I have n't used that
intelligence in the right way. Don't smile! I 'm not going to turn
mawkish. I 'm not good. I don't know whether I want to be. But I
know one thing: I 've got to keep busy--I 've got to be active. I 've
_got_ to be!"

"And?" prompted the First Deputy, as she came to a stop.

"We all know, now, exactly where we 're at. We all know what we want,
each one of us. We know what Blake wants. We know what you want. And
I want something more than I 'm getting, just as you want something
more than writing reports and rounding up push-cart peddlers. I want
my end, as much as you want yours."

"And?" again prompted the First Deputy.

"I 've got to the end of my ropes; and I want to swing around. It's no
reform bee, mind! It's not what other women like me think it is. But
I can't go on. It doesn't lead to anything. It does n't pay. I want
to be safe. I 've _got_ to be safe!"

He looked up suddenly, as though a new truth had just struck home with
him. For the first time, all that evening, his face was ingenuous.

"I know what's behind me," went on the woman. "There 's no use digging
that up. And there 's no use digging up excuses for it. But there
_are_ excuses--good excuses, or I 'd never have gone through what I
have, because I feel I was n't made for it. I 'm too big a coward to
face what