ugh his words had been the absolute
expression of his desire instead of the commonplace mediums of commercial
intercourse. Presently he stopped and began fumbling in one of the
drawers of his desk.

"Where is the memorandum I made last week for Percy and Company?"

"Isn't it there?" she asked.

But he continued to fumble, running through the papers and disarranging
them until she could stand it no longer.

"You never know where to find anything," she declared, rising and darting
around the desk and bending over the drawer, her deft fingers rapidly
separating the papers. She drew forth the memorandum triumphantly.

"There!" she exclaimed. "It was right before your eyes."

As she thrust it at him his hand closed over hers. She felt him drawing
her, irresistibly.

"Janet!" he said. "For God's sake--you're killing me--don't you know it?
I can't stand it any longer!"

"Don't!" she whispered, terror-stricken, straining away from him. "Mr.
Ditmar--let me go!"

A silent struggle ensued, she resisting him with all the aroused strength
and fierceness of her nature. He kissed her hair, her neck,--she had
never imagined such a force as this, she felt herself weakening,
welcoming the annihilation of his embrace.

"Mr. Ditmar!" she cried. "Somebody will come in."

Her fingers sank into his neck, she tried to hurt him and by a final
effort flung herself free and fled to the other side of the room.

"You little--wildcat!" she heard him exclaim, saw him put his
handkerchief to his neck where her fingers had been, saw a red stain on
it. "I'll have you yet!"

But even then, as she stood leaning against the wall, motionless save for
the surging of her breast, there was about her the same strange, feral
inscrutableness. He was baffled, he could not tell what she was thinking.
She seemed, unconquered, to triumph over her disarray and the agitation
of her body. Then, with an involuntary gesture she raised her hands to
her hair, smoothing it, and without seeming haste left the room, not so
much as glancing at him, closing the door behind her.

She reached her table in the outer office and sat down, gazing out of the
window. The face of the world--the river, the mills, and the bridge--was
changed, tinged with a new and unreal quality. She, too, must be changed.
She wasn't, couldn't be the same person who had entered that room of
Ditmar's earlier in the afternoon! Mr. Caldwell made a commonplace
remark, she heard herself answer