, even to himself, but the knowledge
subconsciously rankled.

He hired an office down-town, joined the Commercial Club, religiously
attended every meeting that had to do with food conservation, hunted
out, absorbed, appropriated all the economic secrets that served his
purpose.... Suddenly he found himself engrossed, enthusiastic, _busy_!
Finally Claire said to him one day:

"Don't you think I ought to come to you every afternoon?"

"If you can arrange it," he almost snapped back at her.

She did arrange it, how he took no pains to inquire, and a little later
she said again:

"You ought to have some one here all day. I guess you will have to look
for another stenographer."

He remembered how menacingly he had darted at her. She was dressed for
the street, on her way home, and she had halted at the door.

"Do you want to desert the work that you've inspired?" he demanded.

"Inspired?... By _me_?" Her voice took on a note of triumph.

"You didn't fancy that _I_ inspired it, did you?" he sneered at her.

His vehemence confused her. "I hadn't thought.... Really, you know....
Well, as you say.... But, of course, it is absurd when you can get any
number of girls to...."

"But suppose I want _you_?" he demanded of her for a second time.

She left without further reply.

When she was gone he found himself in a nasty panic. It was as if the
lady who had called him to her lists had suddenly decided upon a new
defender.

"Is she tired of it all ... or is there some one else? Can it be
possible that Flint...."

He had stopped short, amazed to find his mind descending to such a
vulgar level. What had come over him? And he began to fancy things as
they once had been--empty, purposeless days, and nights that found him
too bored to even sleep. It seemed incredible that he could go back to
them again. What lay at the bottom of his sudden deep-breathed
satisfaction with life? For an instant, the truth which he had kept at
bay with his old trick of evasion swept toward him.

"No ... no," he muttered. "Oh no!... That would be too absurd!"

But when he had gone to the mirror to brush his hair before venturing on
the street he found thick beads of perspiration on his forehead and his
hand shook as he lifted the comb.

The next day he told Claire that in the future her salary would be
twenty dollars a week. He stood expecting her to rail against the
increase, to try to put him to rout by explaining that she had received