d undergone a subtle
transformation. There could be no doubt of that. She was almost
coquettish. His eyes lingered. The china silk blouse was slightly open
at the neck, suggesting the fullness of her throat; it clung to the
outline of her shoulders. Overcome by an impulse he could not control,
he got up and went toward her, but she avoided him.

"I'll tell Mr. Orcutt you've come," she said, rather breathlessly, as
she reached the door and opened it. Ditmar halted in his steps at
the sight of the tall, spectacled figure of the superintendent on the
threshold.

Orcutt hesitated, looking from one to the other.

"I've been waiting for you," he said, after a moment, "the rest of that
lot didn't come in this morning. I've telephoned to the freight agent."

Ditmar stared at him uncomprehendingly. Orcutt repeated the information.

"Oh well, keep after him, get him to trace them."

"I'm doing that," replied the conscientious Orcutt.

"How's everything else going?" Ditmar demanded, with unlooked-for
geniality. "You mustn't take things too hard, Orcutt, don't wear
yourself out."

Mr. Orcutt was relieved. He had expected an outburst of the exasperation
that lately had characterized his superior. They began to chat. Janet
had escaped.

"Miss Bumpus told me you wanted to see me. I was just going to ring you
up," Ditmar informed him.

"She's a clever young woman, seems to take such an interest in things,"
Orcutt observed. "And she's always on the job. Only yesterday I saw her
going through the mill with young Caldwell."

Ditmar dropped the paper-weight he held.

"Oh, she went through, did she?"

After Orcutt departed he sat for awhile whistling a tune, from a popular
musical play, keeping time by drumming with his fingers on the desk.

That Mr. Semple, the mill treasurer, came down from Boston that morning
to confer with Ditmar was for Janet in the nature of a reprieve. She sat
by her window, and as her fingers flew over the typewriter keys she
was swept by surges of heat in which ecstasy and shame and terror were
strangely commingled. A voice within her said, "This can't go on, this
can't go on! It's too terrible! Everyone in the office will notice
it--there will be a scandal. I ought to go away while there is yet
time--to-day." Though the instinct of flight was strong within her, she
was filled with rebellion at the thought of leaving when Adventure was
flooding her drab world with light, even as the mill across the