" Jonathan said warmly. "You're catching
on faster than I ever hoped for. You don't know what a help you are to
me. The draftsmen I've had before used only their hands. You use your
head."

"Thank you," said David, grateful for the assurance, even if the good
will behind it was a trifle obvious.

"And you find your work interesting, don't you?"

"I'm learning to like it--very much."

He tried to make his answer convincing. But when he had left the
office, Jonathan shook his head and sought out his bookkeeper.

"That's a very nice young man, Miss Summers," he said. "Mr. Quentin, I
mean."

Miss Summers agreed.

"But I'm afraid he's pretty heartsore yet."

Miss Summers looked a question.

"He's a young architect," Jonathan explained, "who didn't make good.
I'm afraid this work seems a come-down to him."

"That's too bad," said Miss Summers.

"If you get a chance, I wish you would try to make things cheerful for
him here."

"Of course," said Miss Summers, who understood Jonathan quite well.

"_We've_ got to try that. We must make a little conspiracy to that
end. I'll try to think up some details."

Miss Summers smiled as though she liked making little conspiracies with
Jonathan. "Of course," she said again, and looked upon that as a
promise.

Very quietly she set about keeping it. A little timidly, too; which
was strange, since with others in the office and shop she was not in
the least timid. She could do little, it is true--a cheery "Good
morning" and a friendly nod at evening, an occasional smile when
something brought David into her office, once in a long while a brief
little chat in which she, with a breath-taking sense of having an
adventure, took the lead. Another young man might have detected her
friendliness and considered his charms. But David, though his grave
courtesy never failed, neither thought of his charms nor was conscious
of hers. Her charms, to be sure, were not of a striking sort; at least
at first glance. She was a frail-looking body whose face was nearly
always pale and sometimes, toward evening of a hot day, rather pinched;
her arms were too slender to be pretty and the cords of her broad white
neck stood out. She was not very tall and, perched on her stool at the
tall old-fashioned desk by the window, she seemed more girlish even
than her years, which were four-and-twenty. She did not look at all
like an iris, even a white iris girl; David would almost as soon ha