e seeking Aunt Isobel, whose sole advice in such a
crisis was to apologize and propitiate.

Catching her breath in a long, sobbing sigh, Eleanor rushed down the
gloomy hall and shut herself in her room. For ten minutes she sat at her
desk, staring grimly at the wall, with her hands gripped in her lap. She
was like a frenzied prisoner, determined to escape but with no
destination in view. Suddenly her eyes fell on an unopened letter on her
blotting-pad. She tore off the envelop and read it twice. For another
five minutes she stared at the wall. Then she seized her pen and dashed
off a note. It took but a few minutes after that to change her light gown
for a dark one and to fling some things into a suit-case. Just as dinner
was being announced, she slipped down the back stairs and out of the side
door into the somber dusk of the November evening.

CHAPTER 24

Quin's life at the factory these past three weeks had been full of new
and engrossing business complications. Mr. Bangs seemed bent upon trying
him out in various departments, each change bringing new and distracting
duties. Just what was the object of the proceeding Quin had no idea; but
he realized that he was being singled out and experimented with, and he
applied to each new task the accumulated knowledge and experience of
those that had gone before. It was all very exciting and gratifying to a
person possessed of an inordinate ambition to have a worthy shrine ready
the moment his goddess evinced the slightest willingness to occupy it.

"Old Iron Jaw's got his optic on you for something," said Miss Leaks, the
stenographer. "Maybe he wants you to pussy-foot around in Shields' shoes
and do his dirty work for him."

"Well, he's got another guess coming," said Quin; but her remark
disturbed him. Of course it was no concern of his how the firm did
business, but more than once he had been called upon to negotiate some
delicate matter that was not at all to his liking.

"See here, young man," Mr. Bangs said upon one of these occasions, "I am
not paying you for advice. You are here to carry out my orders and to
make no comments."

"That's all right," Quin agreed good-naturedly; "but I got a conscience
that was trained to stand on its hind legs and bark at a lie."

"The quicker you muzzle it the better," said Mr. Bangs. "You can't do
business these days by the Golden Rule."

On the Saturday when Eleanor saw Quin in the park w