"Nothing. That is, nothing definite. No man-reason. Just a woman-reason." 

 T. A. Buck strolled over to her, smiling. 

 "I haven't known you all this time without having learned that that's reason enough. And if they really do know, I'm glad." 

 "But we didn't want them to know. Not yet—until—until just before the——" 

 T. A. Buck laid his hands lightly on Emma McChesney's shoulders. Emma McChesney promptly reached up and removed them. 

 "There you are!" exclaimed Buck, and rammed the offending hands into his pockets. 

 "That's why I'm glad they know—if they really do know. I'm no actor. I'm a skirt-and-lingerie manufacturer. For the last six weeks, instead of being allowed to look at you with the expression that a man naturally wears when he's looking at the woman he's going to marry, what have I had to do? Glare, that's what! Scowl! Act like a captain of finance when I've felt like a Romeo! I've had to be dry, terse, businesslike, when I was bursting with adjectives that had nothing to do with business. You've avoided my office as you would a small-pox camp. You've greeted me with a what-can-I-do-for-you air when I've dared to invade yours. You couldn't have been less cordial to a book agent. If it weren't for those two hours you grant me in the evening, I'd—I'd blow up with a loud report, that's what. I'd——" 

 "Now, now, T. A.!" interrupted Emma McChesney soothingly, and patted one gesticulating arm.  "It has been a bit of a strain—for both of us. But, you know, we agreed it would be best this way. We've ten days more to go. Let's stick it out as we've begun. It has been best for us, for the office, for the business. The next time you find yourself choked up with a stock of fancy adjectives, write a sonnet to me. Work 'em off that way." 

 T. A. Buck stood silent a moment, regarding her with a concentration that would have unnerved a woman less poised. 

 "Emma McChesney, when you talk like that, so coolly, so evenly, so—so darned mentally, I sometimes wonder if you really——" 

 "Don't say it, T. A. Because you don't mean it. I've had to fight for most of my happiness. I've never before found it ready at hand. I've always had to dig for it with a shovel and a spade and a pickax, and then blast. I had almost twenty years of that—from the time I 

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