ner became patronizingly authoritative again. Fanny seemed to have
become part of the routine of the place. Fenger did not send for her.
June and July were insufferably hot. Fanny seemed to thrive, to expand
like a flower in the heat, when others wilted and shriveled. The
spring catalogue was to be made up in October, as always, six months
in advance. The first week in August Fanny asked for an interview with
Fenger. Slosson was to be there. At ten o'clock she entered Fenger's
inner office. He was telephoning--something about dinner at the Union
League Club. His voice was suave, his tone well modulated, his accent
correct, his English faultless. And yet Fanny Brandeis, studying the
etchings on his wall, her back turned to him, smiled to herself. The
voice, the tone, the accent, the English, did not ring true They were
acquired graces, exquisite imitations of the real thing. Fanny Brandeis
knew. She was playing the same game herself. She understood this man
now, after two months in the Haynes-Cooper plant. These marvelous
examples of the etcher's art, for example. They were the struggle for
expression of a man whose youth had been bare of such things. His love
for them was much the same as that which impels the new made millionaire
to buy rare pictures, rich hangings, tapestries, rugs, not so much
in the desire to impress the world with his wealth as to satisfy the
craving for beauty, the longing to possess that which is exquisite, and
fine, and almost unobtainable. You have seen how a woman, long denied
luxuries, feeds her starved senses on soft silken things, on laces and
gleaming jewels, for pure sensuous delight in their feel and look.

Thus Fanny mused as she eyed these treasures--grim, deft, repressed
things, done with that economy of line which is the test of the etcher's
art.

Fenger hung up the receiver.

"So it's taken you two months, Miss Brandeis. I was awfully afraid, from
the start you made, that you'd be back here in a week, bursting with
ideas."

Fanny smiled, appreciatively. He had come very near the truth. "I had to
use all my self-control, that first week. After that it wasn't so hard."

Fenger's eyes narrowed upon her. "Pretty sure of yourself, aren't you?"

"Yes," said Fanny. She came over to his desk.

"I wish we needn't have Mr. Slosson here this morning. After all, he's
been here for years, and I'm practically an upstart. He's so much older,
too. I--I hate to hurt him. I wish you'd--"

Bu