ill. I never thought much about it before, I always
hated it," she cried, dropping the papers and suddenly facing him. "It
was just drudgery. But now I want to learn everything, all I can, I'd
like to see the machinery."

"I'll take you through myself--to-morrow," he declared.

His evident agitation made her pause. They were alone, the outer office
deserted, and the Ditmar she saw now, whom she had summoned up with
ridiculous ease by virtue of that mysterious power within her, was no
longer the agent of the Chippering Mill, a boy filled with enthusiasm
by a business achievement, but a man, the incarnation and expression of
masculine desire desire for her. She knew she could compel him, if she
chose, to throw caution to the winds.

"Oh no!" she exclaimed. She was afraid of him, she shrank from such a
conspicuous sign of his favour.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I don't want you to," she said, and realized, as soon as she
had spoken, that her words might imply the existence of a something
between them never before hinted at by her. "I'll get Mr. Caldwell to
take me through." She moved toward the door, and turned; though still
on fire within, her manner had become demure, repressed. "Did you wish
anything more this evening?" she inquired.

"That's all," he said, and she saw that he was gripping the arms of his
chair....

CHAPTER VII

Autumn was at hand. All day it had rained, but now, as night fell
and Janet went homeward, the white mist from the river was creeping
stealthily over the city, disguising the familiar and sordid landmarks.
These had become beautiful, mysterious, somehow appealing. The electric
arcs, splotches in the veil, revealed on the Common phantom trees;
and in the distance, against the blurred lights from the Warren Street
stores skirting the park could be seen phantom vehicles, phantom people
moving to and fro. Thus, it seemed to Janet, invaded by a pearly mist
was her own soul, in which she walked in wonder,--a mist shot through
and through with soft, exhilarating lights half disclosing yet
transforming and etherealizing certain landmark's there on which,
formerly, she had not cared to gaze. She was thinking of Ditmar as she
had left him gripping his chair, as he had dismissed her for the day,
curtly, almost savagely. She had wounded and repelled him, and lingering
in her was that exquisite touch of fear--a fear now not so much inspired
by Ditmar as by the semi-acknowledged recognitio