exact too much. It will be quite satisfactory if you can complete it
this afternoon."

"I am sorry," said his assistant, flushing in a quite unaccustomed
manner. "I have been working more slowly than I realized. I will finish
it as rapidly as I can, sir."

"Don't apologize, Mr. Kendrick. We all have our slow days. I undoubtedly
underestimated the amount of time the chapter would require. Good
afternoon to you."

Richard sat down and plunged into the task he now saw he had merely
played with during the morning. By a tremendous effort he kept his eyes
from lifting to the figure at the typewriter, whose steady clicking
never ceased but for a moment at a time, putting him to shame. Yet try
as he would he could not apply himself with any real concentration; and
the task called for concentration, all he could command.

"You are probably not used to working in the same room with a
typewriter," said his companion, quite unexpectedly, after a full half
hour of silence. She had stopped work to oil a bearing in her machine.
There was an odd note in her voice; it sounded to Richard as if she
meant: "You are not used to doing anything worth while."

"I don't mind it in the least," he protested.

"I'm sorry not to take my work to another room," Roberta went on,
tipping up her machine and manipulating levers with skill as she applied
the oil. "But I shall soon be through."

"Please don't hurry. I ought to be able to work under any conditions.
And I certainly enjoy having you at work in the same room," he ventured
to add. It was odd how he found himself merely venturing to say to this
girl things which he would have said without hesitation--putting them
much more strongly withal--to any other girl he knew.

"One needs to be able to forget there's anybody in the same room." There
was a little curl of scorn about her lips.

"That might be easier to do under some conditions than others." He did
not mean to be trampled upon.

But Roberta finished her oiling in silence and again applied herself to
her typing with redoubled energy.

He went at his abstract, suddenly furious with himself. He would show
her that he could work as persistently as she. He could not pretend to
himself that she was not absorbed. Only entire absorption could enable
her to reel off those pages without more than an infrequent stop for the
correction of an error.

Turning a page in the big volume of records of speeches in the State
Legislature, which he