ts. That's early for Sunday, but it's going to be worth it."

"I can't. Really. Besides, I don't think I even want to. I----"

"I promise not to lecture on Nature, if that's what's worrying you." He
took her hand in a parting grip. "Bring some sandwiches, will you? Quite
a lot of 'em. I'll have some other stuff in my rucksack. And wear some
clothes you don't mind wrecking. I suppose you haven't got a red tam o'
shanter?"

"Heavens, no!"

"I just thought it might help to keep me humble." He was at the door,
and so was she, somehow, her hand still in his. "Eight o'clock. How do
you stand it in this place, Fan? Oh, well--I'll find that out to-morrow.
Good-by."

Fanny went back to her desk and papers. The room seemed all at once
impossibly stuffy, her papers and letters dry, meaningless things. In
the next office, separated from her by a partition half glass, half
wood, she saw the top of Slosson's bald head as he stood up to shut
his old-fashioned roll-top desk. He was leaving. She looked out of the
window. Ella Monahan, in hat and suit, passed and came back to poke her
head in the door.

"Run along!" she said. "It's Saturday afternoon. You'll work overtime
enough when the Christmas rush begins. Come on, child, and call it a
day!"

And Fanny gathered papers, figures, catalogue proofs into a glorious
heap, thrust them into a drawer, locked the drawer, pushed back her
chair, and came.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Fanny told herself, before she went to bed Saturday night, that she
hoped it would rain Sunday morning from seven to twelve. But when
Princess woke her at seven-thirty, as per instructions left in penciled
scrawl on the kitchen table, she turned to the window at once, and was
glad, somehow, to find it sun-flooded. Princess, if you're mystified,
was royal in name only--a biscuit-tinted lady, with a very black and
no-account husband whose habits made it necessary for Princess to let
herself into Fanny's four-room flat at seven every morning, and let
herself out at eight every evening. She had an incredibly soft and
musical voice, had Princess, and a cooking hand. She kept Fanny mended,
fed and comfortable, and her only cross was that Fanny's taste in
blouses (ultimately her property) ran to the severe and tailored.

"Mawnin', Miss Fanny. There's a gep'mun waitin' to see yo'."

Fanny choked on a yawn. "A what!"

"Gep'mun. Says yo-all goin' picnickin'. He's in the settin' room,
a-lookin' at yo' pictchah papahs