or that was burning her cheeks. For an
impersonal observer she realized they showed too much.

"I think he has ability," Farnsworth answered slowly. "He began well,
but he has let down a little lately."

"That's too bad," answered Mr. Seagraves. "I thought he would make a
good man for us."

"I can tell better in another month," Mr. Farnsworth answered.

"We need another selling man," declared Mr. Seagraves.

"We do," nodded Farnsworth. "I have my eye on several we can get if
Pendleton doesn't develop."

"That's good. Ready, Miss Winthrop."

The thing Miss Winthrop had to decide that night was whether she
should allow Mr. Pendleton to stumble on to his doom or take it upon
herself to warn him. She was forced to carry that problem home with
her, and eat supper with it, and give up her evening to it. Whenever
she thought of it from that point of view, she grew rebellious and
lost her temper. There was not a single sound argument why her time
and her thought should be thus monopolized by Mr. Pendleton.

She had already done what she could for him, and it had not amounted
to a row of pins. She had told him to go to bed at night, so that he
could get up in the morning fresh, and he had not done it. She had
advised him to hustle whenever he was on an errand for Farnsworth, and
of late he had loafed. She had told him to keep up to the minute on
the current investments the house was offering, and to-day he probably
could not have told even the names of half of them. No one could argue
that it was her duty to keep after him every minute--as if he belonged
to her.

And then, in spite of herself, her thoughts went back to the private
office of Mr. Seagraves. She recalled the expression on the faces of
the two men--an expression denoting only the most fleeting interest in
the problem of Mr. Pendleton. If he braced up, well and good; if he
did not, then it was only a question of selecting some one else. It
was Pendleton's affair, not theirs.

That was what every one thought except Pendleton himself--who did not
think at all, because he did not know. And if no one told him, then he
would never know. Some day Mr. Farnsworth would call him into the
office and inform him his services were no longer needed. He would
not tell him why, even if Don inquired. So, with everything almost
within his grasp, Pendleton would go. Of course, he might land another
place; but it was no easy thing to find the second opportunity, having
fail