me,
but you got to have friendship jus' same."

His arm was about her shoulder. For a second she leaned against him.

All her scorn of him suddenly gathered in one impulse. She sprang
up--just in time to catch a grin on his face.

"You gutter-rat!" she said. "You aren't worth my telling you what you
are. You wouldn't understand. You can't see anything but the gutter."

He was perfectly unperturbed: "Poor stuff, kid. Weak come-back. Sounds
like a drayma. But, say, listen, honest, kid, you got me wrong. What's
the harm in a little hugging--"

She fled. She was safe in her room. She stood with both arms
outstretched. She did not feel soiled by this dirty thing. She was
triumphant. In the silhouette of a water-tank, atop the next-door
apartment-house, she saw a strong tower of faith.

"Now I don't have to worry about him. I don't have to make any more
decisions. I know! I'm through! No one can get me just because of
curiosity about sex again. I'm free. I can fight my way through in
business and still keep clean. I can! I was hungry for--for even that
rat. I--Una Golden! Yes, I was. But I don't want to go back to him. I've
won!

"Oh, Walter, Walter, I do want you, dear, but I'll get along without
you, and I'll keep a little sacred image of you."

CHAPTER X

The three-fourths of Una employed in the office of Mr. Troy Wilkins was
going through one of those periods of unchanging routine when all past
drama seems unreal, when nothing novel happens nor apparently ever will
happen--such a time of dull peacefulness as makes up the major part of
our lives.

Her only definite impressions were the details of daily work, the
physical aspects of the office, and the presence of the "Boss."

Sec. 2

Day after day the same details of the job: letters arriving, assorted,
opened, answered by dictation, the answers sealed and stamped (and
almost every day the same panting crisis of getting off some cosmically
important letter).... The reception of callers; welcome to clients;
considerate but firm assurances to persons looking for positions that
there was "no opening just at _present_--" The suave answering of
irritating telephone calls.... The filing of letters and plans; the
clipping of real-estate-transfer items from newspapers.... The
supervision of Bessie Kraker and the office-boy.

Equally fixed were the details of the grubby office itself. Like many
men who have pride in the smartest suburban homes available,