t to know if you
can't take the nine twenty-two," Caldwell went on. "It's about that
lawsuit. It comes into court Monday morning, and Mr. Sprole is there,
and they say they have to see you. Miss Bumpus has the memorandum."

Ditmar looked at his watch.

"Damn it, why didn't they let me know yesterday?" he exclaimed. "I won't
see anybody, Caldwell--not even Orcutt--just now. You understand. I've
got to have a little time to do some letters. I won't be disturbed--by
any one--for half an hour."

Caldwell nodded.

"All right, Mr. Ditmar."

Ditmar went into his office, closing the door behind him. She was
occupied as usual, cutting open the letters and laying them in a pile
with the deftness and rapidity that characterized all she did.

"Janet!" he exclaimed.

"There's a message for you from Boston. I've made a note of it," she
replied.

"I know--Caldwell told me. But I wanted to see you before I went--I had
to see you. I sat up half the night thinking of you, I woke up thinking
of you. Aren't you glad to see me?"

She dropped the letter opener and stood silent, motionless, awaiting his
approach--a pose so eloquent of the sense of fatality strong in her as
to strike him with apprehension, unused though he was to the appraisal
of inner values. He read, darkly, something of this mystery in her eyes
as they were slowly raised to his, he felt afraid; he was swept again by
those unwonted emotions of pity and tenderness--but when she turned
away her head and he saw the bright spot of colour growing in her cheek,
spreading to her temple, suffusing her throat, when he touched the
soft contour of her arm, his passion conquered.... Still he was acutely
conscious of a resistance within her--not as before, physically directed
against him, but repudiating her own desire. She became limp in his
arms, though making no attempt to escape, and he knew that the essential
self of her he craved still evaded and defied him. And he clung to her
the more desperately--as though by crushing her peradventure he might
capture it.

"You're hurting me," she said at last, and he let her go, standing
by helplessly while she went through the movements of readjustment
instinctive to women. Even in these he read the existence of the
reservation he was loth to acknowledge.

"Don't you love me?" he said.

"I don't know."

"You do!" he said. "You--you proved it--I know it."

She went a little away from him, picking up the paper cutter, but it l