play golf all afternoon. The stenographer who commuted--always there
is one girl in the office who commutes--brought spring in the form of
pussy-willows and apple-blossoms, and was noisily envied.

The windows were open now, and usually some one was speculatively
looking down to the life on the pavement, eight stories below. At
noon-hour the younger girls of the office strolled along the sidewalk in
threes and fours, bareheaded, their arms about one another, their
spring-time lane an irregular course between boxes in front of
loft-buildings; or they ate their box-and-paper-napkin lunches on the
fire-escape that wound down into the court. They gigglingly drew their
skirts about their ankles and flirted with young porters and packers who
leaned from windows across the court. Una sat with them and wished that
she could flirt like the daughters of New York. She listened eagerly to
their talk of gathering violets in Van Cortlandt Park and tramping on
the Palisades. She noted an increased number of excited confidences to
the effect that, "He says to me--" and "I says to him--" and, "Say, gee!
honest, Tess, he's a swell fellow." She caught herself wanting to tramp
the Palisades with--with the Walter Babson who didn't even know her
first name.

When she left the flat these mornings she forgot her lonely mother
instantly in the treacherous magic of the tender sky, and wanted to run
away, to steal the blue and silver day for her own. But it was gone when
she reached the office--no silver and blue day was here; but, on
golden-oak desk and oak-and-frosted-glass semi-partitions, the same
light as in the winter. Sometimes, if she got out early, a stilly
afterglow of amber and turquoise brought back the spring. But all day
long she merely saw signs that otherwhere, for other people, spring did
exist; and she wistfully trusted in it as she watched and helped Walter
Babson.

She was conscious that she was working more intimately with him as a
comrade now, not as clerk with executive. There had been no one
illuminating moment of understanding; he was impersonal with her; but
each day their relationship was less of a mechanical routine, more of a
personal friendship. She felt that he really depended on her steady
carefulness; she knew that through the wild tangle of his impulsiveness
she saw a desire to be noble.

Sec. 5

He came clattering down the aisle of desks to her one May afternoon, and
begged, "Say, Miss Golden, I'm stuck