ce, the determination gave her a sense of peace and unity. But the
northwest wind was blowing. It had chased away the mist and the clouds,
the smoke from Canada. The sun shone with a high brilliancy, the elms of
the Common cast sharp, black shadow-patterns on the pavements, and when
she reached the office and looked out of his window she saw the blue
river covered with quicksilver waves chasing one another across the
current. Ditmar had not yet returned to Hampton. About ten o'clock, as
she was copying out some figures for Mr. Price, young Mr. Caldwell
approached her. He had a Boston newspaper in his hand.

"Have you seen this article about Mr. Ditmar?" he asked.

"About Mr. Ditmar? No."

"It's quite a send-off for the Colonel," said Caldwell, who was wont at
times to use the title facetiously. "Listen; `One of the most notable
figures in the Textile industry of the United States, Claude Ditmar,
Agent of the Chippering Mill.'" Caldwell spread out the page and pointed
to a picture. "There he is, as large as life."

A little larger than life, Janet thought. Ditmar was one of those men
who, as the expression goes, "take" well, a valuable asset in semi-public
careers; and as he stood in the sunlight on the steps of the building
where they had "snap-shotted" him he appeared even more massive,
forceful, and preponderant than she had known him. Beholding him thus set
forth and praised in a public print, he seemed suddenly to have been
distantly removed from her, to have reacquired at a bound the dizzy
importance he had possessed for her before she became his stenographer.
She found it impossible to realize that this was the Ditmar who had
pursued and desired her; at times supplicating, apologetic, abject; and
again revealed by the light in his eyes and the trembling of his hand as
the sinister and ruthless predatory male from whom--since the revelation
in her sister Lise she had determined to flee, and whom she had persuaded
herself she despised. He was a bigger man than she had thought, and as
she read rapidly down the column the fascination that crept over her was
mingled with disquieting doubt of her own powers: it was now difficult to
believe she had dominated or could ever dominate this self-sufficient,
successful person, the list of whose achievements and qualities was so
alluringly set forth by an interviewer who himself had fallen a victim.

The article carried the implication that the modern, practical, American
b