on," Reed spoke with masterful abruptness; "would you mind doing
a letter or two at my dictation? Duncan is busy in the laboratory, this
afternoon; and these things must go out on to-night's mail." His voice
was steady, as he spoke; but in his brave brown eyes Dolph recognized
the old-time harried, hunted look which he had hoped would never come
again. Later, the letters done, Dolph went away without waiting for
more conversation. For a singularly happy-go-lucky mortal, Dolph's
instincts were to be by no means distrusted.

Dolph's going was only just in time to prevent his meeting Olive who
came around the curve of the street, just as he was leaving the Opdyke
grounds. He waved his hat to her from afar, and she answered his
greeting; but neither of them changed the direction of his steps. They
saw each other often enough, in any case; and it was an accepted fact
between them that Reed's calls were better taken singly, as a rule,
than in pairs.

However, as she went into Reed's room, that day, Olive began to have
her doubts how long the old rule would hold good. Reed was increasingly
busy, nowadays. Letters and drawings, photographs and samples of ores
were piling in upon him from all parts of the country. The old phrase,
indeed, was gaining a new fulfilment: the mountain was coming to
Mahomet in all literalness. Olive had long since become accustomed to
finding the room littered with the debris of much consulting, had grown
accustomed to having her trivial gossip interrupted by the advent of
fresh letters and a new supply of specimen ores. She had grown glib in
reading off the unfamiliar phrasing of the letters, facile in writing
down the totally unspellable words of Opdyke's dictated replies. In all
of this, however, she had been made to feel aware that she herself
stood first to Reed, his work stood second.

Not that Olive for one instant would have allowed herself consciously
to become jealous of Reed's work. She was too sane and generous for
that, too happy in the change it was making in Reed's existence. He was
alert and enthusiastic now, where aforetime he was passive and plucky.
His brown eyes snapped, not gleamed expressively. In short, the new
assistant was finding out, to his extreme surprise, that his position
was no sentimental sinecure, that, coming to be hands and feet to
supplement an active scientific brain, he was likely to work more
strenuously, more to the purpose, than he had done in the New York