the capable
woman's contempt for the average member of her own sex. "Girls!" she
would sniff. Shrewdly, Sally watched the comedy; but for all her
shrewdness she never quite understood the cause of Gaga's weakness. It
was that Madam had insisted upon early obedience in days when Gaga's
precocious ill-health made him pliable; and a docile child becomes a
tractable boy and finally a man who needs constant guidance. Sally only
saw the last stage. She nodded grimly to herself one day. "Wants
somebody to look after him," she said. "Somebody to manage him." With
one of her unerring supplements she added confidently: "I could manage
him. And look after him, too, for that matter. Poor lamb!"

The extra work kept Miss Summers and Miss Rapson late almost every
evening, and Sally also stayed, so that in the evenings she often saw
Gaga. She even, once or twice, when Miss Summers had gone to consult
Miss Rapson (who stood upon her dignity and kept to her own room),
sought pretexts for going into the room where Gaga was. She went in to
look at the Directory, or she pretended that she had supposed Miss
Summers with him; and on these occasions she stood at the door, and
talked, until Miss Summers' imminent return made her fly innocently back
to her seat. She enjoyed observing Gaga's pleasure, and even excitement,
at her approach. It gratified her naughty vanity and her impulse to the
exploitation of others. One evening when she had thus stolen five
minutes, she found Gaga ruffling his hair over an account, and at his
great sigh of bewilderment she turned from the book she was needlessly
consulting.

"Got a headache, Mr. Bertram?" she timidly and commiseratingly asked.

Gaga looked up at her gratefully, a comic expression of dismay upon his
face. The books lay before him upon the table, and an account had been
transferred from one to another. A litter of papers was also there. He
was in the last stages of perplexity.

"No," he said. "It's this account. I can't make it out. See if you can."

Sally went and stood close to him, leaning over to examine the books, so
that his shoulder touched her side. She knew that the contact thrilled
him, and for an instant was so occupied with the recognition that she
could not collect her thoughts. He had been adding up in pencil on a
sheet of paper the two series of entries, and there was a discrepancy
between them. Sally checked his figures: there seemed nothing wrong with
them. She herself added