trick of
wearing simple garments which gave them distinction. Already she had
half a dozen sweethearts. Boys were drawn to her; girls she repelled
rather. Girls found her too self-centered, too intent on attaining her
own aims to give much heed to companionships. They called her selfish.
Well, if selfishness is another name for a constant, bounding ambition
to get on and up in the world Eleanor Millsap was selfish. But for the
boys she had a tremendous attraction. They admired her quick, cruel wit,
her energy, her good looks. She met her sweethearts on the street, at
the soda fountain, in that trysting place for juvenile sweetheartings,
the far corner of the post-office corridor.

She never invited any of these youthful squires of hers to her house;
they kept rendezvous with her at the corner below and they parted from
her at the gate. They somehow gathered, without being told it in so many
words, that she was ashamed of the poverty of her home, and, boylike,
they felt a dumb sympathy for her that she should be denied what so many
girls had. But for all her sidewalk flirtations, she kept herself aloof
from any touch of scandal; the very openness of her gaddings protected
her from that. Besides, she seemed instinctively to know that if she
meant to make the best possible bargain for herself in life she must
keep herself unblemished--must give of her charms but not give too
freely. Town gossips might call her a forward piece, as they did;
jealousy among girls of her own age might have it that she was flip and
fresh; but no one, with truth, might brand her as fast.

Having graduated with honors, she learned stenography--learned it
thoroughly and well, as was her way with whatever she undertook--and
presently found a place as secretary to Dallam Wybrant, the leading
merchandise broker of the three in town. Now Dallam Wybrant was youngish
and newly widowed--bereft but rallying fast from the grief of losing a
wife who had been his senior by several years. Knowing people--persons
who could look through a grindstone as far as the next one, and maybe
farther--smiled with meaning when they considered the prospect. A
good-looking, shrewd girl, always smart and trig and crisp, always with
an eye open for the main chance, sitting hour by hour and day by day in
the same office with a lonely, impressionable, conceited man--well,
there was but one answer to it. But one answer to it there was. Nobody
was very much surprised, although