He turned a very frank gaze in her direction and she quizzically
returned his glance.

"That's rather ridiculous, don't you think?" she said, trying to
disguise her furtive annoyance. "You can hire a substitute through any
typewriting agency on the basis of three dollars a day."

"Yes, and I can buy two cigars for a nickel, but I shouldn't want to
smoke them."

She clicked the keys of her machine idly. "That is hardly a fair
comparison. You can get any number of competent girls for three
dollars."

He rested his chin on his upturned palm. "But, my dear Miss Robson, I
happen to want _you_."

She thought of any number of cheap, obvious retorts that might have been
flung back at his straightforward admission, but instead she said, with
equal frankness:

"That's just what I don't understand."

He threw her a puzzled look and the usual placid light in his eyes
quickened to resentful impatience.

"Is that a necessary part of the contract, Miss Robson?"

She caught her breath. His tone of annoyance was sharp and unexpected.
There was a suggestion of Flint's masculine arrogance in his voice. She
felt how absurd was her cross-examination of him, of how absurd, under
the circumstances, would have been her cross-examination of anybody
ready and willing to give her work to do and an ample wage in the
bargain, and yet, for all the force of his reply, she knew it to be a
well-bred if not a deliberate evasion.

"You mean it is none of my business, don't you?" she contrived to laugh
back at him.

His reply was a further surprise. "Yes, precisely," he said, with an
ominous thinning of the lips.

She rose instinctively to meet this thrust and she was conscious that
even Flint had never managed so to disturb her. She glanced about
hastily as if measuring the room in a swift impulse toward escape.
Stillman had chosen the dining-room for a temporary office, and upon the
polished surface of the antique walnut table the typewriter struck an
incongruous note; indeed, it was all incongruous, particularly Stillman
and his assumed business airs. Yes, it was absurd for her to either
cross-examine or protest, but it was equally absurd for him to pay her
such an outlandish sum for nine hours a week.

"He's doing it for me," she thought, not without a sense of triumph.
Then, turning to him, she said, a bit awkwardly:

"I guess there isn't any use to dissuade you, Mr. Stillman. If you say
fifteen dollars a week, I sha'n't argue wi