le joke about
Bill's desire for a drink and their willingness to help him slay the
booze-evil. Una was conscious that they had gone, that walls of silence
were closing about her clacking typewriter. And that Walter Babson had
not gone; that he was sharing with her this whispering forsaken office.

Presently he came rambling out of the editorial-room.

He had taken off his grotesque, great horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes were
mutinous in his dark melancholy face; he drew a hand over them and shook
his head. Una was aware of all this in one glance. "Poor, tired boy!"
she thought.

He sat on the top of the nearest desk, hugged his knee, rocked back and
forth, and said, "Much left, Miss Golden?"

"I think I'll be through in about two hours."

"Oh, Lord! I can't let you stay that late."

"It doesn't matter. Really! I'll be glad. I haven't had to stay late
much."

For quite the first time he stared straight at her, saw her as a human
being. She was desperately hoping that her hair was smooth and that
there wasn't any blue from the typewriter ribbon daubed on her
cheeks!... He ceased his rocking; appraised her. A part of her brain was
wondering what he would do; a part longing to smile temptingly at him; a
part coldly commanding, "You will not be a little fool--he isn't
interested in you, and you won't try to make him be, either!"

"Why, you look as fagged as I feel," he said. "I suppose I'm as bad as
the rest. I kick like a steer when the Old Man shoves some extra work on
me, and then I pass the buck and make _you_ stay late. Say! Tell you
what we'll do." Very sweet to her was his "we," and his intimacy of
tone. "I'll start copying, too. I'm quite considerable at
machine-pounding myself, and we can get the thing done and mailed by
six-thirty or so, and then I'll buy you a handsome dinner at Childs's.
Gosh! I'll even blow you to a piece of pie; and I'll shoot you up home
by quarter to eight. Great stuff! Gimme a copy of the drool. Meanwhile
you'll have a whole hour for worried maiden thoughts over going out to
eat with the bad, crazy Wally Babson!"

His smile was a caress. Her breath caught, she smiled back at him
fearfully. Then he was gone. In the editorial office was heard the
banging of his heavy old typewriter--it was an office joke, Walter's
hammering of the "threshing-machine."

She began to type again, with mechanical rapidity, not consciously
seeing the copy, so distraught was she as she murmured, "Oh, I oug