to see you again! You're looking——" 

 The closed door stifled the rest. Emma McChesney, in her office across the way, stood a moment in the center of the room, her hand covering her eyes. The hardy chrysanthemums still glowed sunnily from their vase. The little room was very quiet except for the ticking of the smart, leather-encased clock on the desk. 

 The closed door shut out factory and office sounds. And Emma McChesney stood with one hand over her eyes. So Napoleon might have stood after Waterloo. 

 After this first lesson, Mrs. McChesney did not err again. When, two days later, Miss Sharp, of Berg Brothers, Omaha, breezed in, looking strangely juvenile and distinctly anticipatory, Emma greeted her smilingly and waved her toward the door opposite. Miss Sharp, the erstwhile bristling, was strangely smooth and sleek. She glanced ever so softly, sighed ever so flutteringly. 

 "Working side by side with him, seeing him day after day, how have you been able to resist him?" 

 Emma McChesney was only human, after all. 

 "By remembering that this is a business house, not a matrimonial parlor." 

 The dart found no lodging place in Miss Sharp's sleek armor. She seemed scarcely to have heard. 

 "My dear," she whispered, "his eyes! And his manner! You must be—whatchamaycallit—adamant. Is that the way you pronounce it? You know what I mean." 

 "Oh, yes," replied Emma McChesney evenly, "I—know what you mean." 

 She told herself that she was justified in the righteous contempt which she felt for this sort of thing. A heart-breaker! A cheap lady-killer! Whereupon in walked Sam Bloom, of the Paris Emporium, Duluth, one of Mrs. McChesney's stanchest admirers and a long-tried business friend. 

 The usual thing:  "Younger than ever, Mrs. McChesney! You're a wonder—yes, you are! How's business? Same here. Going to have lunch with me to-day?"  Then:  "I'll just run in and see Buck. Say, where's he been keeping himself all these years? Chip off the old block, that boy." 

 So he had the men, too! 

 It was in this frame of mind that Miss Ethel Morrissey found her on the morning that she came into New York on her semi-annual 

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