longs to yeh,
and yet nobody'd recognize it. You don't need to tell Ma anything you
don't want to, and you can tell her I'll write a letter to-night all
about it. Now come on! We gotta go on the trolley a piece. I don't see
havin' you leave from the General Station. We'll go up to the Junction
and get the train there."

With an odd feeling that she was bidding good-by to herself forever and
was about to become somebody else, Betty gave one more glance at the
slim boylike creature in the little mirror over the washstand and
followed Jane out of the room, shuffling along in the big high-heeled
boots, quite unlike the Betty that she was.

CHAPTER VI

WARREN REYBURN laid down his pen and shoved back his office chair
impatiently, stretching out his long muscular limbs nervously and
rubbing his hands over his eyes as if to clear them from annoying
visions.

James Ryan, his office boy and stenographer, watched him furtively from
one corner of his eye, while his fingers whirled the typewriter on
through the letter he was typing. James wanted to take his girl to the
movies that evening and he hadn't had a chance to see her the day
before. He was wondering if Mr. Reyburn would go out in time for him to
call her up at her noon hour. He was a very temperamental stenographer
and understood the moods and tenses of his most temperamental employer
fully. It was all in knowing how to manage him. James was most
deferential, and knew when to keep still and not ask questions. This was
one of the mornings when he went to the dictionary himself when he
wasn't sure of a word rather than break the ominous silence. Not that
Mr. Reyburn was a hard master, quite the contrary, but this was James's
first place straight from his brief course at business school, and he
was making a big bluff of being an old experienced hand.

There was not much business to be done. This was Warren Reyburn's "first
place" also in the world of business since finishing his law course, and
he was making a big bluff at being very busy, to cover up a sore heart
and an anxious mind. It was being borne in upon him gradually that he
was not a shouting success in business so far. The rosy dreams that had
floated near all through his days of hard study had one by one left him,
until his path was now leading through a murky gray way with little hope
ahead. Nothing but sheer grit kept him at it, and he began to wonder how
long he could stick it out if nothing turned