demureness as
repression. Her qualities needed illumination, and he, Claude Ditmar,
had seen them struck with fire. He wondered whether any other man had
been as fortunate.

Later in the morning, quite casually, he made inquiries of Miss Ottway,
who liked Janet and was willing to do her a good turn.

"Why, she's a clever girl, Mr. Ditmar, a good stenographer, and
conscientious in her work. She's very quick, too.

"Yes, I've noticed that," Ditmar replied, who was quite willing to have
it thought that his inquiry was concerned with Janet's aptitude for
business.

"She keeps to herself and minds her own affairs. You can see she comes
of good stock." Miss Ottway herself was proud of her New England
blood. "Her father, you know, is the gatekeeper down there. He's been
unfortunate."

"You don't say--I didn't connect her with him. Fine looking old man. A
friend of mine who recommended him told me he'd seen better days...."

CHAPTER II

In spite of the surprising discovery in his office of a young woman of
such a disquieting, galvanic quality, it must not be supposed that
Mr. Claude Ditmar intended to infringe upon a fixed principle. He had
principles. For him, as for the patriarchs and householders of Israel,
the seventh commandment was only relative, yet hitherto he had held
rigidly to that relativity, laying down the sound doctrine that women
and business would not mix: or, as he put it to his intimates, no
sensible man would fool with a girl in his office. Hence it may be
implied that Mr. Ditmar's experiences with the opposite sex had been on
a property basis. He was one of those busy and successful persons who
had never appreciated or acquired the art of quasi-platonic amenities,
whose idea of a good time was limited to discreet excursions with
cronies, likewise busy and successful persons who, by reason of having
married early and unwisely, are strangers to the delights of that higher
social intercourse chronicled in novels and the public prints. If one
may conveniently overlook the joys of a companionship of the soul, it
is quite as possible to have a taste in women as in champagne or
cigars. Mr. Ditmar preferred blondes, and he liked them rather stout,
a predilection that had led him into matrimony with a lady of this
description: a somewhat sticky, candy-eating lady with a mania for card
parties, who undoubtedly would have dyed her hair if she had lived. He
was not inconsolable, but he had had enough of