s; the
sky was a blur of gray; and, lest she forget the job, Una's left wrist
ached from typing; yet she heard the rustle of spring, and her spirit
swelled with thankfulness as she felt her life to be not a haphazard
series of days, but a divine progress.

Walter was coming--to-night!

She was conscious of her mother, up-stairs. From her place of meditation
she had to crawl up the many steps to the flat and answer at least
twenty questions as to what she had been doing. Of Walter's coming she
could say nothing; she could not admit her interest in a man she did not
know.

At a quarter to nine she ventured to say, ever so casually: "I feel sort
of headachy. I think I'll run down and sit on the steps again and get a
little fresh air."

"Let's have a little walk. I'd like some fresh air, too," said Mrs.
Golden, brightly.

"Why--oh--to tell the truth, I wanted to think over some office
business."

"Oh, of course, my dear, if I am in the _way_--!" Mrs. Golden sighed,
and trailed pitifully off into the bedroom.

Una followed her, and wanted to comfort her. But she could say nothing,
because she was palpitating over Walter's coming. The fifteen minutes of
his stay might hold any splendor.

She could not change her clothes. Her mother was in the bedroom,
sobbing.

All the way down the four flights of stairs she wanted to flee back to
her mother. It was with a cold impatience that she finally saw Walter
approach the house, ten minutes late. He was so grotesque in his
frantic, puffing hurry. He was no longer the brilliant Mr. Babson, but a
moist young man who hemmed and sputtered, "Gee!--couldn't find clean
collar--hustled m' head off--just missed Subway express--couldn't make
it--whew, I'm hot!"

"It doesn't matter," she condescended.

He dropped on the step just below her and mopped his forehead. Neither
of them could say anything. He took off his horn-rimmed eye-glasses,
carefully inserted the point of a pencil through the loop, swung them in
a buzzing circle, and started to put them on again.

"Oh, keep them _off_!" she snapped. "You look so high-brow with them!"

"Y-yuh; why, s-sure!"

She felt very superior.

He feverishly ran a finger along the upper rim of his left ear, sprang
up, stooped to take her hand, glared into her eyes till she shrank--and
then a nail-cleaner, a common, ten-cent file, fell out of his inner
pocket and clinked on the stone step.

"Oh, damn!" he groaned.

"I really think it _i