when she treated him with an aloofness, an
impersonality unsurpassed; moments when he paused in his dictation to
stare at her in astonishment. He, who flattered himself that he
understood women!

She would show him!--such was her dominating determination. Her promotion
assumed the guise of a challenge, of a gauntlet flung down at the feet of
her sex. In a certain way, an insult, though incredibly stimulating. If
he flattered himself that he had done her a favour, if he entertained the
notion that he could presently take advantage of the contact with her now
achieved to make unbusinesslike advances--well, he would find out. He had
proclaimed his desire for an able assistant in Miss Ottway's place--he
would get one, and nothing more. She watched narrowly, a l'affut, as the
French say, for any signs of sentiment, and indeed this awareness of her
being on guard may have had some influence on Mr. Ditmar's own attitude,
likewise irreproachable.... A rather anaemic young woman, a Miss Annie
James, was hired for Janet's old place.

In spite of this aloofness and alertness, for the first time in her life
Janet felt the exuberance of being in touch with affairs of import.
Hitherto the mill had been merely a greedy monster claiming her freedom
and draining her energies in tasks routine, such as the copying of
meaningless documents and rows of figures; now, supplied with stimulus
and a motive, the Corporation began to take on significance, and she
flung herself into the work with an ardour hitherto unknown, determined
to make herself so valuable to Ditmar that the time would come when he
could not do without her. She strove to memorize certain names and
addresses, lest time be lost in looking them up, to familiarize herself
with the ordinary run of his correspondence, to recall what letters were
to be marked "personal," to anticipate matters of routine, in order that
he might not have the tedium of repeating instructions; she acquired the
faculty of keeping his engagements in her head; she came early to the
office, remaining after hours, going through the files, becoming familiar
with his system; and she learned to sort out his correspondence, sifting
the important from the unimportant, to protect him, more and more, from
numerous visitors who called only to waste his time. Her instinct for the
detection of book-agents, no matter how brisk and businesslike they might
appear, was unerring--she remembered faces and the names belongi