ion are functions of the same thing. There were moments when
she believed herself to hate Mr. Ditmar, 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