't mean bodily, but
mentally."

"I am no great talker at best," said Richard with a helpless air.
"I seldom speak unless I have something to say."

"But other people do. I, for instance."

"Oh, you, Margaret; that is different. When you talk I don't much
mind what you are talking about."

"I like a neat, delicate compliment like that!"

"What a perverse girl you are to-day!" cried Richard. "You won't
understand me. I mean that your words and your voice are so pleasant
they make anything interesting, whether it's important or not."

"If no one were to speak until he had something important to
communicate," observed Margaret, "conversation in this world would
come to a general stop." Then she added, with a little ironical
smile, "Even you, Richard, wouldn't be talking all the time."

Formerly Margaret's light sarcasms, even when the struck him
point-blank, used to amuse Richard, but now he winced at being merely
grazed.

Margaret went on: "But it's not a bit necessary to be circular or
instructive--with me. I am interested in trivial matters,--in the
weather, in my spring hat, in what you are going to do next, and the
like. One must occupy one's self with something. But you, Richard,
nowadays you seem interested in nothing, and have nothing whatever to
say."

Poor Richard! He had a great deal to say, but he did not know how,
nor if it were wise to breathe it. Just three little words, murmured
or whispered, and the whole conditions would be changed. With those
fateful words uttered, what would be Margaret's probable attitude,
and what Mr. Slocum's? Though the line which formerly drew itself
between employer and employee had grown faint with time, it still
existed in Richard's mind, and now came to the surface with great
distinctness, like a word written in sympathetic ink. If he spoke,
and Margaret was startled or offended, then there was an end to their
free, unembarrassed intercourse,--perhaps an end to all intercourse.
By keeping his secret in his breast he at least secured the present.
But that was to risk everything. Any day somebody might come and
carry Margaret off under his very eyes. As he reflected on this, the
shadow of John Dana, the son of the rich iron-manufacturer, etched
itself sharply upon Richard's imagination. Within the week young Dana
had declared in the presence of Richard that "Margaret Slocum was an
awfully nice little thing," and the Othello in Richard's blood had
been set seething. Th