how brisk
and businesslike they might appear, was unerring--she remembered faces
and the names belonging to them: an individual once observed to be
persona non grata never succeeded in passing her twice. On one occasion
Ditmar came out of his office to see the back of one of these visitors
disappearing into the corridor.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"His name is McCalla," she said. "I thought you didn't want to be
bothered."

"But how in thunder did you get rid of him?" he demanded.

"Oh, I just wouldn't let him in," she replied demurely.

And Ditmar went away, wondering.... Thus she studied him, without
permitting him to suspect it, learning his idiosyncrasies, his attitude
toward all those with whom daily he came in contact, only to find
herself approving. She was forced to admit that he was a judge of men,
compelled to admire his adroitness in dealing with them. He could be
democratic or autocratic as occasion demanded; he knew when to yield,
and when to remain inflexible. One morning, for instance, there arrived
from New York a dapper salesman whose jauntily tied bow, whose thin
hair--carefully parted to conceal an incipient baldness--whose wary
and slightly weary eyes all impressively suggested the metropolitan
atmosphere of high pressure and sophistication from which he had
emerged. He had a machine to sell; an amazing machine, endowed with
human intelligence and more than human infallibility; for when it made
a mistake it stopped. It was designed for the express purpose of
eliminating from the payroll the skilled and sharp-eyed women who
are known as "drawers-in," who sit all day long under a north light
patiently threading the ends of the warp through the heddles of the loom
harness. Janet's imagination was gradually fired as she listened to the
visitor's eloquence; and the textile industry, which hitherto had seemed
to her uninteresting and sordid, took on the colours of romance.

"Now I've made up my mind we'll place one with you, Mr. Ditmar," the
salesman concluded. "I don't object to telling you we'd rather have one
in the Chippering than in any mill in New England."

Janet was surprised, almost shocked to see Ditmar shake his head, yet
she felt a certain reluctant admiration because he had not been swayed
by blandishments. At such moments, when he was bent on refusing a
request, he seemed physically to acquire massiveness,--and he had a
dogged way of chewing his cigar.

"I don't want it, yet," he r