of coffee, and walked
part way to the office, in the hope that the fresh air might do
something toward restoring her color. In this she was successful, but
toward noon the color began to fade again.

The problem that disturbed her the entire morning long had to do with
luncheon. She recognized that here she must strike the keynote to all
her future relations with Mr. Pendleton. If she was to eliminate him
entirely and go back to the time when he was non-existent, then she
must begin to-day. It was so she preferred to handle disagreeable
tasks. She detested compromises. When she had anything to do, she
liked to do it at once and thoroughly. If she had consulted her own
wishes and her own interests alone, she would never have seen him
again outside the office. But if she did this, what would become of
him during this next month?

The trouble was that Don would get lonesome--not necessarily for her,
but for that other. He was the sort of man who needed some one around
all the time to take an interest in him. This deduction was based, not
upon guesswork, but upon experience. For almost a year now she had
seen him every day, and had watched him react to just such interest on
her part. She was only stating a fact when she said to herself that,
had it not been for her, he would have lost his position months
before. She was only stating another fact when she said to herself
that even now he might get side-tracked into some clerical job. Give
him a month to himself now, and he might undo all the effort of the
last six months. Worse than that, he might fall into the clutches of
Blake and go to pieces in another way.

There was not the slightest use in the world in retorting that this,
after all, was the affair of Don and his fiancee rather than hers. She
had brought him through so far, and she did not propose to see her
work wasted. No one would gain anything by such a course.

The alternative, then, was to continue to meet him and to allow
matters to go on as before. It was toward the latter part of the
forenoon that she reached this conclusion. All this while she had been
taking letters from Mr. Seagraves and transcribing them upon her
typewriter without an error. She had done no conscious thinking and
had reached no conscious conclusion. All she knew was that in the
early forenoon she had been very restless, and that suddenly the
restlessness vanished and that she was going on with her typewriting
in a sort of grim conte