manner of the humorous philosopher, "Man is the most adaptable of all
the animals. That's why he has distanced all his relations. I didn't
realize how much our association meant to me until you set me to
thinking about it by telling me you were going. I had been taking you
for granted--a habit we easily fall into with those who simply work
with and for us and don't insist upon themselves."

She was leaning against the frame of the open door into the hall, her
hands behind her back. She was gazing out of the window across the
room.

"You," he went on, "are as I'd like to be--as I imagined I was. Your
sense of duty to the cause orders you elsewhere, and you go--like a
good soldier, with never a backward glance."

She shook her head, but did not speak.

"With never a backward glance," he repeated. "While I--" He shut his
lips together firmly and settled himself with fierce resolution to his
work. "I beg your pardon," he said. "This is--cowardly. As I said
before, I shall get myself in hand again, and go on."

She did not move. The breeze of the unseasonably warm and brilliant
day fluttered her thick, loosely gathered hair about her brow. Her
strange, barbaric little face suggested that the wind was blowing
across it a throng of emotions like the clouds of a driven storm.

A long silence. He suddenly flung out his arms in a despairing gesture
and let them fall to the table. At the crash she startled, gazed
wildly about.

"Selma!" he cried. "I must say it. I love you."

A profound silence fell. After a while she went softly across the room
and sat down at her desk.

"I think I've loved you from the first months of your coming here to
work--to the old office, I mean. But we were always together--every
day--all day long--working together--I thinking and doing nothing
without your sharing in it. So, I never realized. Don't
misunderstand. I'm not trying to keep you here. It's simply that I've
got the habit of telling you everything--of holding back nothing from
you."

"I was going," she said, "because I loved you."

He looked at her in amazement.

"That day you told me you had decided to get married--and asked my
advice about the girls among our friends--that was the day I began to
feel I'd have to go. It's been getting worse ever since."

Once more silence, both looking uneasily about, their glances avoiding
each other. The door of the printing room opened, and Holman, the
printer, came