l-being. They sat for a while in silence. A man passed
them smoking; he turned his head to look back at the girl, and the
flying ash from his cigarette lighted on her dress.

"Confound the brute!" said Rickman, trying to brush away the obnoxious
powder with a touch which would have been more effectual if it had
been less of a caress. She shivered slightly, and he put her cape
gently about her shoulders. A curious garment, Flossie's cape, made of
some thin grey-blue stuff, with gold braid on the collar, cheap,
pretty and a little vulgar.

"There's not much warmth in that thing," he said, feeling it with his
fingers.

"I don't want to be warm, thank you, a day like this," she retorted,
pushing back the cape. For, though it was no longer spring, Flossie's
dream tugged at her heartstrings. There was a dull anger against him
in her heart. At that moment Flossie could have fought savagely for
her dream.

What could have made her so irritable, poor little girl? She didn't
look well; or--perhaps it was her work. He was sorry for all women who
worked. And Flossie--she was such an utter woman. That touch of
exaggeration in the curves of her soft figure made her irresistibly,
superlatively feminine. To be sure, as he had hinted in that unguarded
moment, her beauty was of the kind that suggests nothing more
interesting than itself. Yet there were times when it had power over
him, when he was helpless and stupid before it. And now, as he leaned
back looking at her, his intellect seemed to melt away gradually and
merge in dreamy sense. They sat for a while, still without speaking;
then he suddenly bent forward, gazing into her eyes.

"What is it, Flossie? Tell me."

Flossie turned away her face from the excited face approaching it.

"Tell me."

"It's nothing. Can't you see I'm only tired. I've 'ad a hard day."

"I thought you never had hard days at the Bank?"

"No. No more we do--not to speak of."

"Then it's something you don't like to speak of. I say--have the other
women been worrying you?"

"No, I should think not indeed. Catch any one trying that on with me!"

"Then I can't see what it can be."

"I daresay you can't. You don't know what it is! It's not much, but
it's the same thing day after day, day after day, till I'm sick and
tired of it all! I don't see any end to it either."

"I'm so sorry, Floss," said Rickman in a queer thick voice. She had
turned her face towards him now, and its expression was
inscru