ma McChesney quietly.

Miss Sweeney simpered down at her glove-tips, fluttered her eyelids.

"Well--yes--I--I--you see, I bought of him this year, and when you buy
of a person, why, naturally, you----"

"Naturally; I understand."

She walked across the hall, threw open the door, and met T. A. Buck's
glance coolly.

"Mr. Buck, Miss Sweeney, of Des Moines, is here, and I'm sure you want
to see her. This way, Miss Sweeney."

Miss Sweeney, sidling, blushing, fluttering, teetered in. Emma
McChesney, just before she closed the door, saw a little spasm cross
Buck's face. It was gone so quickly, and a radiant smile sat there so
reassuringly, that she wondered if she had not been mistaken, after
all. He had advanced, hand outstretched, with:

"Miss Sweeney! It--it's wonderful to see you again! You're
looking----"

The closed door stifled the rest. Emma McChesney, in her office across
the way, stood a moment in the center of the room, her hand covering
her eyes. The hardy chrysanthemums still glowed sunnily from their
vase. The little room was very quiet except for the ticking of the
smart, leather-encased clock on the desk.

The closed door shut out factory and office sounds. And Emma McChesney
stood with one hand over her eyes. So Napoleon might have stood after
Waterloo.

After this first lesson, Mrs. McChesney did not err again. When, two
days later, Miss Sharp, of Berg Brothers, Omaha, breezed in, looking
strangely juvenile and distinctly anticipatory, Emma greeted her
smilingly and waved her toward the door opposite. Miss Sharp, the
erstwhile bristling, was strangely smooth and sleek. She glanced ever
so softly, sighed ever so flutteringly.

"Working side by side with him, seeing him day after day, how have you
been able to resist him?"

Emma McChesney was only human, after all.

"By remembering that this is a business house, not a matrimonial
parlor."

The dart found no lodging place in Miss Sharp's sleek armor. She
seemed scarcely to have heard.

"My dear," she whispered, "his eyes! And his manner! You must
be--whatchamaycallit--adamant. Is that the way you pronounce it? You
know what I mean."

"Oh, yes," replied Emma McChesney evenly, "I--know what you mean."

She told herself that she was justified in the righteous contempt which
she felt for this sort of thing. A heart-breaker! A cheap
lady-killer! Whereupon in walked Sam Bloom, of the Paris Emporium,
Duluth, one of Mrs. Mc