a brimming glass,
drank it off, and gave vent to a great exhaust of breath. He tried not
to strut as he crossed back to his desk, climbed his stool, adjusted
his eye-shade, and, with a last throaty chuckle, plunged into his books
again.

But his words already were working their wonders. The office, after
the first shock, was flooded with a new atmosphere--a subtle, pervasive
air of hushed happiness, of tender solicitude. It went about like a
mother who has found her child asleep at play, and who steals away
atiptoe, finger on lip, lips smiling tenderly.

The delicate antennae of Emma McChesney's mind sensed the change.

Perhaps she read something in the glowing eyes of her sister-in-love,
Hortense. Perhaps she caught a new tone in Miss Kelly's voice or the
forewoman's. Perhaps a whisper from the outer office reached her desk.
The very afternoon of Pop Henderson's electrifying speech, Mrs.
McChesney crossed to T. A. Buck's office, shut the door after her,
lowered her voice discreetly, and said,

"T. A., they're on."

"What makes you think so?"

"Nothing. That is, nothing definite. No man-reason. Just a
woman-reason."

T. A. Buck strolled over to her, smiling.

"I haven't known you all this time without having learned that that's
reason enough. And if they really do know, I'm glad."

"But we didn't want them to know. Not yet--until--until just before
the----"

T. A. Buck laid his hands lightly on Emma McChesney's shoulders. Emma
McChesney promptly reached up and removed them.

"There you are!" exclaimed Buck, and rammed the offending hands into
his pockets.

"That's why I'm glad they know--if they really do know. I'm no actor.
I'm a skirt-and-lingerie manufacturer. For the last six weeks, instead
of being allowed to look at you with the expression that a man
naturally wears when he's looking at the woman he's going to marry,
what have I had to do? Glare, that's what! Scowl! Act like a captain
of finance when I've felt like a Romeo! I've had to be dry, terse,
businesslike, when I was bursting with adjectives that had nothing to
do with business. You've avoided my office as you would a small-pox
camp. You've greeted me with a what-can-I-do-for-you air when I've
dared to invade yours. You couldn't have been less cordial to a book
agent. If it weren't for those two hours you grant me in the evening,
I'd--I'd blow up with a loud report, that's what. I'd----"

"Now, now, T. A.!" interrupted E