ess had been the
under-current throughout.

"I wonder," said Emma very gently, "if a small Henry, some day, won't
provide you with an outlet for all that stored-up energy."

Hortense looked up very bravely.

"Maybe. You--you must have been about my age when your boy was born.
Did he make you feel--different?"

The shade of sadness that always came at the mention of those unhappy
years of her early marriage crept into Emma's face now.

"That was not the same, dear," she explained. "I hadn't your sort of
Henry. You see, my boy was my only excuse for living. You'll never
know what that means. And when things grew altogether impossible, and
I knew that I must earn a living for Jock and myself, I just did
it--that's all. I had to."

Hortense thought that over for one deliberate moment. Her brows were
drawn in a frown.

"I'll tell you what I think," she announced, at last, "though I don't
know that I can just exactly put it into words. I mean this: Some
people are just bound to--to give, to build up things, to--well, to
manufacture, because they just can't help it. It's in 'em, and it's
got to come out. Dynamos--that's what Henry's technical books would
call them. You're one--a great big one. I'm one. Just a little tiny
one. But it's sparking away there all the time, and it might as well
be put to some use, mightn't it?"

Emma bent down and kissed the troubled forehead, and then, very
tenderly, the pretty, puckered lips.

"Little Hortense," she said, "you're asking a great big question. I
can answer it for myself, but I can't answer it for you. It's too
dangerous. I wouldn't if I could."

Emma, waiting in the hall for the lift, looked back at the slim little
figure in the doorway. There was a droop to the shoulders. Emma's
heart smote her.

"Don't bother your head about all this, little girl," she called back
to her. "Just forget to be ambitious and remember to be happy. That's
much the better way."

Hortense, from the doorway, grinned a rather wicked little grin.

"When are you going back to the office, Mrs. Buck?" she asked, quietly
enough.

"What makes you think I'm going back at all?" demanded Emma, stepping
into the shaky little elevator.

"I don't think it," retorted Hortense, once more the pert. "I know it."

Emma knew it, too. She had known it from the moment that she shook
hands in her compact. There was still one week remaining of the
stipulated three months. It seemed