xplained.

"Well, what of it?"

"May I sit down?"

There was an empty chair next to her.

"I can't prevent you, but I've told you I want to be alone."

"When you look that way, you're just as much alone as if I weren't
here," he returned, as he took the chair. "And every one knows it."

She gave a swift glance about the room, as if expecting to find half
the crowd looking at her.

"Maybe they are too polite to let on," he continued; "but I know just
what they are saying to themselves. They are saying, 'She certainly
hasn't much use for him. You'd think he'd take the tip and get out.'"

"You don't seem to care much, then, about what they say."

"I don't care a hang," he admitted.

She pushed her plate away as if ready to go.

"Wait a minute," he pleaded. "It doesn't seem like you to go off and
leave a man in the dark. How in thunder am I going to know any better
next time if you don't tell me where I made the break?"

"I don't believe you'd know if I did tell you," she answered more
gently.

"The least you can do is to try."

She did not want to tell him. If he was sincere--and the longer she
talked with him, the more convinced she was that this was the
case--then she did not wish to disillusionize him.

"The least you can do is to give me a chance," he persisted.

"The mistake came in the beginning, Mr. Pendleton," she said, with an
effort. "And it was all my fault. You--you seemed so different from a
lot of men who come into the office that I--well, I wanted to see you
get started straight. In the three years I've been there I've picked
up a lot of facts that aren't much use to me because--because I'm just
Miss Winthrop. So I thought I could pass them on."

"That was mighty white of you," he nodded.

The color flashed into her cheeks.

"I thought I could do that much without interfering in any other way
with either of our lives."

"Well?"

"There were two or three things I didn't reckon with," she answered.

"What were they?" he demanded.

"Blake is one of them."

"Blake?" His face brightened with sudden understanding. "Then the
trouble is all about that box of candy?"

"You shouldn't have sent it. You should have known better than to send
it. You--had no right."

"But that was nothing. You were so darned good to me about the
typewriting and it was all I could think of."

"So, you see," she concluded, "it won't do. It won't do at all."

"I don't see," he returned.

"Then it's beca