u have done splendid work in your department? You have achieved the
wonderful feat of improving our streets and keeping expenses down at the
same time."

"That was not difficult," he answered, "where the opposite had been the
practice for so long. I'm going down now to inspect that street we are
laying out just back of your place. I'm sorry there had to be blasting."

"The street will be all the more picturesque when it's done," she
replied. "Good afternoon, and thank you, for what you promised."

"O, I wonder if I can hold out," she said to herself as he went out. "If
he had said another word, I should have given in,--but he didn't."

Still, that he would say it some other time, she knew. Then she would
have to say yes.

CHAPTER XXVII

A Heart's Awakening

There were the afternoon letters to dictate, which took her nearly an
hour; and there were callers who kept her in the office until nearly
five o'clock. When they had all left she sat for a moment, resting and
reviewing the events of the day.

"I wonder if I've done right," she queried. "He will succeed me and do
great things for Roma, but O, I wish I could help him. I wish I dared
let myself love him as he deserves. I wish I were one of the softer,
clinging women, made to love a man and to depend on him for happiness.
After all, they are the fortunate ones. But,--what am I saying? Brace
up, Gertrude Van Deusen; don't be a sentimental girl! You've prided
yourself on your independence of mind and heart. At your age, to be
thinking of a man,--and one whose ideal is so far from what you know
yourself to be! I'll go to Europe this winter and stay a year. I'll soon
get back to my old spirit, and cease to think--"

The telephone rang.

"Well?" she asked.

"There's been an explosion down back of your house among the
street-department's tools," some one was saying. "Two men were hit by
flying rocks and hurt, we fear badly. One of them was a laborer,--"

"And the other?" asked Gertrude quickly, her heart divining the truth.

"Was Commissioner Allingham. He had just come to inspect the work. May
we take them to your house until we can get the ambulance and the
doctors?"

"Take them there at once," she responded. "Get the doctors, but don't
call the ambulances yet--until we know what to do with the men. I'll be
right down."

She flew to her closet and hurried into her coat. At the door, her
carriage waited and she gave orders to drive as fast as possi