"Suppose we transfer this talk to my office. All the papers are there,
all the correspondence--all the orders, everything. You can get the
whole situation in half an hour. What's the use of talking when
figures will tell you."

He walked swiftly over to the door and stood there waiting. Emma
McChesney rose. The puzzled look was there again.

"No, that wasn't it, after all," she said.

"Eh?" said Buck. "Wasn't what?"

"Nothing," replied Emma McChesney.

"I'm wool-gathering this morning. I'm afraid it's going to take me a
day or two to get back into harness again."

"If you'd rather wait, if you think you'll be more fit to-morrow or the
day after, we'll wait. There's no real hurry. I just thought----"

But Mrs. McChesney led the way across the hall that separated her
office from her partner's. Halfway across, she stopped and surveyed
the big, bright, busy main office, with its clacking typewriters and
rustle and crackle of papers and its air of concentration.

"Why, you've run up a partition there between Miss Casey's desk and the
workroom door, haven't you?"

"Yes; it's much better that way."

"Yes, of course. And--why, where are the boys' desks? Spalding's and
Hutchinson's, and--they're all gone!" She turned in amazement.

"Break it to me! Aren't we using traveling men any more?"

Buck laughed his low, pleasant laugh.

"Oh, yes; but I thought their desks belonged somewhere else than in the
main office. They're now installed in the little room between the shop
and Healy's office. Close quarters, but better than having them out
here where they were inclined to neglect their reports in order to
shine in the eyes of that pretty new stenographer. There are one or
two other changes. I hope you'll approve of them."

"I'm sure I shall," replied Emma McChesney, a little stiffly.

In Buck's office, she settled back in her chair to watch him as he
arranged neat sheaves of papers for her inspection. Her eyes traveled
from his keen, eager face to the piles of paper and back again.

"Tell me, did you hit it off with the Ella Sweeneys and the Sadie
Harrises of the great Middle West? Is business as bad as the howlers
say it is? You said something last night about a novelty bifurcated
skirt. Was that the new designer's idea? How have the early buyers
taken to it?"

Buck crooked an elbow over his head in self-defense.

"Stop it! You make me feel like Rheims cathedral. Don't bombard until