EMMA McCHESNEY & CO. 

by

Edna Ferber

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

 I. BROADWAY TO BUENOS AIRES II. THANKS TO MISS MORRISSEY III. A CLOSER CORPORATION IV. BLUE SERGE V. "HOOPS, MY DEAR!" VI. SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKIN VII. AN ETUDE FOR EMMA

EMMA McCHESNEY & CO. 

I

BROADWAY TO BUENOS AIRES

The door marked "MRS. MCCHESNEY" was closed. T. A. Buck, president ofthe Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, coming gaily down the hall, stopped before it, dismayed, as one who, with a spicy bit of news athis tongue's end, is met with rebuff before the first syllable isvoiced. That closed door meant: "Busy. Keep out. "

"She'll be reading a letter, " T. A. Buck told himself grimly. Then heturned the knob and entered his partner's office. 

Mrs. Emma McChesney was reading a letter. More than that, she wasporing over it so that, at the interruption, she glanced up in amaddeningly half-cocked manner which conveyed the impression that, while her physical eye beheld the intruder, her mental eye was still onthe letter. 

"I knew it, " said T. A. Buck morosely. 

Emma McChesney put down the letter and smiled. 

"Sit down--now that you're in. And if you expect me to say, 'Knewwhat?' you're doomed to disappointment. "

T. A. Buck remained standing, both gloved hands clasping his walkingstick on which he leaned. 

"Every time I come into this office, you're reading the latest scrawlfrom your son. One would think Jock's letters were deathlessmasterpieces. I believe you read them at half-hour intervals all week, and on Sunday get 'em all out and play solitaire with them. "

Emma McChesney's smile widened frankly to a grin. 

"You make me feel like a cash-girl who's been caught flirting with theelevator starter. Have I been neglecting business?"

"Business? No; you've been neglecting me!"

"Now, T. A. , you've just come from the tailor's, and I suppose itdidn't fit in the back. "

"It isn't that, " interrupted Buck, "and you know it. Look here! Thatday Jock went away and we came back to the office, and you said----"

"I know I said it, T. A. , but don't remind me of it. That wasn't afair test. I had just seen Jock leave me to take his own place in theworld. You know that my day began and ended with him. He was myreason for everything. When I saw him off for Chicago that day, andknew he was going there to stay, it seemed a million miles from NewYork. I was blue and lonely and heart-sick. If the office-boy hadthrown a kind word to me I'd have broken down and wept on his shoulder. "

Buck, still standing, looked down between narrowed lids at his businesspartner. 

"Emma McChesney, " he said steadily, "do you mean that?"

Mrs. McChesney, the straightforward, looked up, looked down, fiddledwith the letter in her hand. 

"Well--practically yes--that is--I thought, now that you're going tothe mountains for a month, it might give me a chance to think--to----"

"And d'you know what I'll do meanwhile, out of revenge on the sex?I've just ordered three suits of white flannel, and I shall break everyfeminine heart in the camp, regardless-- Oh, say, that's what I came into tell you! Guess whom I saw at the tailor's?"

"Well, Mr. Bones, whom did you, and so forth?"

"Fat Ed Meyers. I just glimpsed him in one of the fitting-rooms. Andthey were draping him in white. "

Emma McChesney sat up with a jerk. 

"Are you sure?"

"Sure? There's only one figure like that. He had the thing on and wassurveying himself in the mirror--or as much of himself as could be seenin one ordinary mirror. In that white suit, with his red face aboveit, he looked like those pictures you see labeled, 'Sunrise onSnow-covered Mountain. '"

"Did he see----"

"He dodged when he saw me. Actually! At least, he seems to have thedecency to be ashamed of the deal he gave us when he left us flat inthe thick of his Middle Western trip and went back to the Sans-SilkSkirt Company. I wanted him to know I had seen him. As I passed, Isaid, 'You'll mow 'em down in those clothes, Meyers. '" Buck sat downin his leisurely fashion, and laughed his low, pleasant laugh. "Can'tyou see him, Emma, at the seashore?"

But something in Emma McChesney's eyes, and something in her set, unsmiling face, told him that she was not seeing seashores. She wasstaring straight at him, straight through him, miles beyond him. Therewas about her that tense, electric, breathless air of completedetachment, which always enveloped her when her lightning mind wasleaping ahead to a goal unguessed by the slower thinking. 

"What's your tailor's name?"

"Name? Trotter. Why?"

Emma McChesney had the telephone operator before he could finish. 

"Get me Trotter, the tailor, T-r-o-double-t-e-r. Say I want to speakto the tailor who fits Mr. Ed Meyers, of the Sans-Silk Skirt Company. "

T. A. Buck leaned forward, mouth open, eyes wide. "Well, what in thename of----"

"I'll let you know in a minute. Maybe I'm wrong. It's just one of myhunches. But for ten years I sold Featherlooms through the sameterritory that Ed Meyers was covering for the Sans-Silk Skirt people. It didn't take me ten years to learn that Fat Ed hadn't the decency tobe ashamed of any deal he turned, no matter how raw. And let me tellyou, T. A. : If he dodged when he saw you it wasn't because he wasashamed of having played us low-down. He was contemplating playinglower-down. Of course, I may be----"

She picked up the receiver in answer to the bell. Then, sweetly, hercalm eyes smiling into Buck's puzzled ones:

"Hello! Is this Mr. Meyers' tailor? I'm to ask if you are sure thatthe grade he selected is the proper weight for the tropics. What? Oh, you say you assured him it was the weight of flannel you always advisefor South America. And you said they'd be ready when? Next week?Thank you. "

She hung up the receiver. The pupils of her eyes were dilated. Hercheeks were very pink as always under excitement. She stood up, herbreath coming rather quickly. 

"Hurray for the hunch! It holds. Fat Ed Meyers is going down to SouthAmerica for the Sans-Silk Company. It's what I've been planning to dofor the last six months. You remember I spoke of it. You pooh-poohedthe idea. It means hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Sans-Silkpeople if they get it. But they won't get it. "

T. A. Buck stood up suddenly. 

"Look here, Emma! If you're----"

"I certainly am. Nothing can stop me. The skirt business hasbeen--well, you know what it's been for the last two years. The SouthAmerican boats sail twice a month. Fat Ed Meyers' clothes are promisedfor next week. That means he isn't sailing until week after next. Butthe next boat sails in three days. " She picked up a piece of paperfrom her desk and tossed it into Buck's hand. "That's the letter I wasreading when you came in. No; don't read it. Let me tell you instead. "

Buck threw cane, hat, gloves, and letter on the broad desk, thrust hishands into his pockets, and prepared for argument. But he got only asfar as: "But I won't allow it! You couldn't get away in three days, at any rate. And at the end of two weeks you'll have come to yoursenses, and besides----"

"T. A. , I don't mean to be rude. But here are your hat and stick andgloves. It's going to take me just forty-eight hours to mobilize. "

"But, Emma, even if you do get in ahead of Meyers, it's an insane idea. A woman can't go down there alone. It isn't safe. It's bad enough fora man to tackle it. Besides, we're holding our own. "

"That's just it. When a doctor issues a bulletin to the effect thatthe patient is holding his own, you may have noticed that the relativesalways begin to gather. "

"It's a bubble, this South American idea. Oshkosh and Southport andAltoona money has always been good enough for us. If we can keep thattrade, we ought to be thankful. "

Emma McChesney pushed her hair back from her forehead with one gestureand patted it into place with another. Those two gestures, to one whoknew her, meant loss of composure for one instant, followed by thequick regaining of it the next. 

"Let's not argue about it now. Suppose we wait until to-morrow--whenit's too late. I am thankful for the trade we've got. But I don'twant to be narrow about it. My thanking capacity is such that I canstretch it out to cover some things we haven't got yet. I've beenreading up on South America. "

"Reading!" put in Buck hotly. "What actual first-hand information canyou get about a country from books?"

"Well, then, I haven't only been reading. I've been talking toeveryone I could lay my hands on who has been down there and who knows. Those South American women love dress--especially the Argentines. Anddo you know what they've been wearing? Petticoats made in England! Youknow what that means. An English woman chooses a petticoat like shedoes a husband--for life. It isn't only a garment. It's a shelter. It's built like a tent. If once I can introduce the T. A. BuckFeatherloom petticoat and knickerbocker into sunny South America, they'll use those English and German petticoats for linoleumfloor-coverings. Heaven knows they'll fit the floor better than thehuman form!"

But Buck was unsmiling. The muscles of his jaw were tense. 

"I won't let you go. Understand that! I won't allow it!"

"Tut, tut, T. A. ! What is this? Cave-man stuff?"

"Emma, I tell you it's dangerous. It isn't worth the risk, no matterwhat it brings us. "

Emma McChesney struck an attitude, hand on heart. "'Heaven willprotect the working girrul, '" she sang. 

Buck grabbed his hat. 

"I'm going to wire Jock. "

"All right! That'll save me fifty cents. Do you know what he'll wireback? 'Go to it. Get the tango on its native tairn'--or words to thateffect. "

"Emma, use a little logic and common sense!"

There was a note in Buck's voice that brought a quick response fromMrs. McChesney. She dropped her little air of gayety. The pain in hisvoice, and the hurt in his eyes, and the pleading in his whole attitudebanished the smile from her face. It had not been much of a smile, anyway. T. A. Knew her genuine smiles well enough to recognize acounterfeit at sight. And Emma McChesney knew that he knew. She cameover and laid a hand lightly on his arm. 

"T. A. , I don't know anything about logic. It is a hot-house plant. But common sense is a field flower, and I've gathered whole bunches ofit in my years of business experience. I'm not going down to SouthAmerica for a lark. I'm going because the time is ripe to go. I'mgoing because the future of our business needs it. I'm going becauseit's a job to be handled by the most experienced salesman on our staff. And I'm just that. I say it because it's true. Your father, T. A. , used to see things straighter and farther than any business man I everknew. Since his death made me a partner in this firm, I find myself, when I'm troubled or puzzled, trying to see a situation as he'd see itif he were alive. It's like having an expert stand back of you in agame of cards, showing you the next move. That's the way I'm playingthis hand. And I think we're going to take most of the tricks awayfrom Fat Ed Meyers. "

T. A. Buck's eyes traveled from Emma McChesney's earnest, glowing faceto the hand that rested on his arm. He reached over and gently coveredthat hand with his own. 

"I suppose you must be right, little woman. You always are. Dad wasthe founder of this business. It was the pride of his life. Thatword 'founder' has two meanings. I never want to be responsible forits second meaning in connection with this concern. "

"You never will be, T. A. "

"Not with you at the helm. " He smiled rather sadly. "I'm a good, ordinary, common seaman. But you've got imagination, and foresight, and nerve, and daring, and that's the stuff that admirals are made of. "

"Bless you, T. A. ! I knew you'd see the thing as I do after the firstshock was over. It has always been nip and tuck between the Sans-SilkCompany and us. You gave me the hint that showed me their plans. Nowhelp me follow it up. "

Buck picked up his hat, squared his shoulders and fumbled with hisgloves like a bashful schoolboy. 

"You--you couldn't kill two birds with one stone on this trip, couldyou, Mrs. Mack?"

Mrs. McChesney, back at her desk again, threw him an inquiring glanceover her shoulder. 

"You might make it a combination honeymoon and Featherloom expedition. "

"T. A. Buck!" exclaimed Emma McChesney. Then, as Buck dodged for thedoor: "Just for that, I'm going to break this to you. You know that Iintended to handle the Middle Western territory for one trip, or untilwe could get a man to take Fat Ed Meyers' place. "

"Well?" said Buck apprehensively. 

"I leave in three days. Goodness knows how long I'll be gone! Abusiness deal down there is a ceremony. And--you won't need anywhite-flannel clothes in Rock Island, Illinois. "

Buck, aghast, faced her from the doorway. 

"You mean, I----"

"Just that, " smiled Emma McChesney pleasantly. And pressed the buttonthat summoned the stenographer. 

In the next forty-eight hours, Mrs. McChesney performed a series ofmental and physical calisthenics that would have landed an ordinarywoman in a sanatorium. She cleaned up with the thoroughness anddispatch of a housewife who, before going to the seashore, forgets notinstructions to the iceman, the milkman, the janitor, and the maid. She surveyed her territory, behind and before, as a general studiestroops and countryside before going into battle; she foresaw factoryemergencies, dictated office policies, made sure of staff organizationlike the business woman she was. Out in the stock-room, under hersupervision, there was scientifically packed into sample-trunks andcases a line of Featherloom skirts and knickers calculated to dazzleBrazil and entrance Argentina. And into her own personal trunk therewent a wardrobe, each article of which was a garment with a purpose. Emma McChesney knew the value of a smartly tailored suit in a businessargument. 

T. A. Buck canceled his order at the tailor's, made up his own line forthe Middle West, and prepared to storm that prosperous and importantterritory for the first time in his business career. 

The South American boat sailed Saturday afternoon. Saturday morningfound the two partners deep in one of those condensed, last-minutediscussions. Mrs. McChesney opened a desk drawer, took out aleather-covered pocket notebook, and handed it to Buck. A tiny smilequivered about her lips. Buck took it, mystified. 

"Your last diary?"

"Something much more important. I call it 'The Salesman's Who's Who. 'Read it as you ought your Bible. "

"But what?" Buck turned the pages wonderingly. He glanced at aparagraph, frowned, read it aloud, slowly. 

"Des Moines, Iowa, Klein & Company. Miss Ella Sweeney, skirt buyer. Old girl. Skittish. Wants to be entertained. Take her to dinner andthe theater. "

He looked up, dazed. "Good Lord, what is this? A joke?"

"Wait until you see Ella; you won't think it's a joke. She'll buy onlyyour smoothest numbers, ask sixty days' dating, and expect you toentertain her as you would your rich aunt. "

Buck returned to the little book dazedly. He flipped anotherleaf--another. Then he read in a stunned sort of voice:

"Sam Bloom, Paris Emporium, Duluth. See Sadie. "

He closed the book. "Say, see here, Emma, do you mean to----"

"Sam is the manager, " interrupted Mrs. McChesney pleasantly, "and hethinks he does the buying, but the brains of that business is a littlegirl named Sadie Harris. She's a wonder. Five years from now, if shedoesn't marry Sam, she'll be one of those ten-thousand-a-year foreignbuyers. Play your samples up to Sammy, but quote your prices down toSadie. Read the next one, T. A. "

Buck read on, his tone lifeless:

"Miss Sharp. Berg Brothers, Omaha. Strictly business. Known amongthe trade as the human cactus. Canceled a ten-thousand-dollar orderonce because the grateful salesman called her 'girlie. ' Stick toskirts. "

Buck slapped the book smartly against the palm of his hand. 

"Do you mean to tell me that you made this book out for me? Do youmean to say that I have to cram on this like a kid studying for exams?That I'll have to cater to the personality of the person I'm sellingto? Why--it's--it's----"

Emma McChesney nodded calmly. 

"I don't know how this trip of yours is going to affect the firm'sbusiness, T. A. But it's going to be a liberal education for you. You'll find that you'll need that little book a good many times beforeyou're through. And while you're following its advice, do this: forgetthat your name is Buck, except for business purposes; forget that yourfamily has always lived in a brownstone mausoleum in Seventy-secondstreet; forget that you like your chops done just so, and your wine atsuch-and-such a temperature; get close to your trade. They're anawfully human lot, those Middle Western buyers. Don't chuck them underthe chin, but smile on 'em. And you've got a lovely smile, T. A. "

Buck looked up from the little leather book. And, as he gazed at EmmaMcChesney, the smile appeared and justified its praise. 

"I'll have this to comfort me, anyway, Emma. I'll know that while I'msmirking on the sprightly Miss Sweeney, your face will be undergoingvarious agonizing twists in the effort to make American pricesunderstood by an Argentine who can't speak anything but Spanish. "

"Maybe I am short on Spanish, but I'm long on Featherlooms. I may notknow a senora from a chili con carne, but I know Featherlooms from thewaistband to the hem. " She leaned forward, dimpling like fourteeninstead of forty. "And you've noticed--haven't you, T. A. ?--that I'vegot an expressive countenance. "

Buck leaned forward, too. His smile was almost gone. 

"I've noticed a lot of things, Emma McChesney. And if you persist indeviling me for one more minute, I'm going to mention a few. "

Emma McChesney surveyed her cleared desk, locked the top drawer with asnap, and stood up. 

"If you do I'll miss my boat. Just time to make Brooklyn. Suppose youwrite 'em. "

That Ed Meyers might know nothing of her sudden plans, she had kept thetrip secret. Besides Buck and the office staff, her son Jock was theonly one who knew. But she found her cabin stocked like a primadonna's on a farewell tour. There were boxes of flowers, a package ofbooks, baskets of fruit, piles of magazines, even a neat little sheafof telegrams, one from the faithful bookkeeper, one from the workroomforeman, two from salesmen long in the firm's employ, two from Jock inChicago. She read them, her face glowing. He and Buck had vied witheach other in supplying her with luxuries that would make pleasanterthe twenty-three days of her voyage. 

She looked about the snug cabin, her eyes suddenly misty. Buck pokedhis head in at the door. 

"Come on up on deck, Emma; I've only a few minutes left. "

She snatched a pink rose from the box, and together they went on deck. 

"Just ten minutes, " said Buck. He was looking down at her. "Remember, Emma, nothing that concerns the firm's business, however big, is halfas important as the things that concern you personally, however small. I realize what this trip will mean to us, if it pans, and if you canbeat Meyers to it. But if anything should happen to you, why----"

"Nothing's going to happen, T. A. , except that I'll probably come homewith my complexion ruined. I'll feel a great deal more at home talkingpidgin-English to Senor Alvarez in Buenos Aires than you will talkingFeatherlooms to Miss Skirt-Buyer in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But rememberthis, T. A. : When you get to know--really to know--the Sadie Harrisesand the Sammy Blochs and the Ella Sweeneys of this world, you'velearned just about all there is to know about human beings. Quick--thegangplank! Goodby, T. A. "

The dock reached, he gazed up at her as she leaned far over therailing. He made a megaphone of his hands. 

"I feel like an old maid who's staying home with her knitting, " hecalled. 

The boat began to move. Emma McChesney passed a quick hand over hereyes. 

"Don't drop any stitches, T. A. " With unerring aim she flung the bigpink rose straight at him. 

She went about arranging her affairs on the boat like the businesswoman that she was. First she made her cabin shipshape. She placednearest at hand the books on South America, and the Spanish-Americanpocket interpreter. She located her deck chair, and her seat in thedining-room. Then, quietly, unobtrusively, and guided by those yearsspent in meeting men and women face to face in business, she tookthorough, conscientious mental stock of those others who were to be herfellow travelers for twenty-three days. 

For the most part, the first-class passengers were men. There wereAmerican business men--salesmen, some of them, promoters others, orrepresentatives of big syndicates shrewd, alert, well dressed, smoothshaven. Emma McChesney knew that she would gain valuable informationfrom many of them before the trip was over. She sighed a littleregretfully as she thought of those smoking-room talks--those intimate, tobacco-mellowed business talks from which she would be barred by hersex. 

There were two engineers, one British, one American, both veryintelligent-looking, both inclined to taciturnity, as is often the casein men of their profession. They walked a good deal, and smokednut-brown, evil-smelling pipes, and stared unblinkingly across thewater. 

There were Argentines--whole families of them--Brazilians, too. Thefat, bejeweled Brazilian men eyed Emma McChesney with open approval, even talked to her, leering objectionably. Emma McChesney refused tobe annoyed. Her ten years on the road served her in good stead now. 

But most absorbing of all to Emma McChesney, watching quietly over herbook or magazine, was a tall, erect, white-bearded Argentine who, withhis family, occupied chairs near hers. His name had struck her withthe sound of familiarity when she read it on the passenger list. Shehad asked the deck-steward to point out the name's owner. "Pages, " sherepeated to herself, worriedly, "Pages? P----" Suddenly she knew. Pages y Hernandez, the owner of the great Buenos Aires shop--a shopfiner than those of Paris. And this was Pages! All the Featherloominstinct in Emma McChesney came to the surface and stayed there, seething. 

That was the morning of the second day out. By afternoon, she hadbribed and maneuvered so that her deck chair was next that of thePages-family flock of chairs. Senor Pages reminded her of one of thosedashing, white-haired, distinguished-looking men whose likeness gracesthe cover of a box of your favorite cigars. 

General Something-or-other-ending-in-z he should have been, with arevolutionary background. He dressed somberly in black, like most ofthe other Argentine men on board. There was Senora Pages, very fat, very indolent, very blank, much given to pink satin and diamonds atdinner. Senorita Pages, over-powdered, overfrizzed, marvelouslygowned, with overplumpness just a few years away, sat quietly by SenoraPages' side, but her darting, flashing, restless eyes were never still. The son (Emma heard them call him Pepe) was barely eighteen, shethought, but quite a man of the world, with his cigarettes, his drinks, his bold eyes. She looked at his sallow, pimpled skin, his lean, brownhands, his lack-luster eyes, and she thought of Jock and was happy. 

Mrs. McChesney knew that she might visit the magnificent Buenos Airesshop of Pages y Hernandez day after day for months without everobtaining a glimpse of either Pages or Hernandez. And here was SenorPages, so near that she could reach out and touch him from her deckchair. Here was opportunity! A caller who had never been obliged toknock twice at Emma McChesney's door. 

Her methods were so simple that she herself smiled at them. She donnedher choicest suit of white serge that she had been saving for shorewear. Its skirt had been cut by the very newest trick. Its coat wasthe kind to make you go home and get out your own white serge and gazeat it with loathing. Senorita Pages' eyes leaped to that suit as ironleaps to the magnet. Emma McChesney, passing her deck chair, detachedthe eyes with a neat smile. Why hadn't she spent six months neglectingSkirts for Spanish? she asked herself, groaning. As she approached herown deck chair again she risked a bright, "Good morning. " Her heartbounded, stood still, bounded again, as from the lips of the assembledPages there issued a combined, courteous, perfectly good American, "Good morning!"

"You speak English!" Emma McChesney's tone expressed flattery andsurprise. 

Pages pere made answer. 

"Ah, yes, it is necessary. There are many English in Argentina. "

A sigh--a fluttering, tremulous sigh of perfect peace andhappiness--welled up from Emma McChesney's heart and escaped throughher smiling lips. 

By noon, Senorita Pages had tried on the fascinating coat and securedthe address of its builder. By afternoon, Emma McChesney was showingthe newest embroidery stitch to the slow but docile Senora Pages. Nextmorning she was playing shuffleboard with the elegant, indolent Pepe, and talking North American football and baseball to him. She had notbeen Jock McChesney's mother all those years for nothing. She coulddiscuss sports with the best of them. Young Pages was avidlyinterested. Outdoor sports had become the recent fashion among therich young Argentines. 

The problem of papa Pages was not so easy. Emma McChesney approachedher subject warily, skirting the bypaths of politics, war, climate, customs--to business. Business!

"But a lady as charming as you can understand nothing of business, "said Senor Pages. "Business is for your militant sisters. "

"But we American women do understand business. Many--many charmingAmerican women are in business. "

Senor Pages turned his fine eyes upon her. She had talked mostinterestingly, this pretty American woman. 

"Perhaps--but pardon me if I think not. A woman cannot be reallycharming and also capable in business. "

Emma McChesney dimpled becomingly. 

"But I know a woman who is as--well, as charming as you say I am. Still, she is known as a capable, successful business woman. She'llbe in Buenos Aires when I am. "

Senor Pages shook an unbelieving head. Emma McChesney leaned forward. 

"Will you let me bring her in to meet you, just to prove my point?"

"She must be as charming as you are. " His Argentine bettingproclivities rose. "Here; we shall make a wager!" He took a card fromhis pocket, scribbled on it, handed it to Emma McChesney. "You willplease present that to my secretary, who will conduct you immediatelyto my office. We will pretend it is a friendly call. Your friend neednot know. If I lose----"

"If you lose, you must promise to let her show you her sample line. "

"But, dear madam, I do no buying. "

"Then you must introduce her favorably to the department buyer of hersort of goods. "

"But if I win?" persisted Senor Pages. 

"If she isn't as charming as--as you say I am, you may make your ownterms. "

Senor Pages' fine eyes opened wide. 

It was on the fourteenth day of their trip that they came into quaintBahia. The stay there was short. Brazilian business methods arelong. Emma McChesney took no chances with sample-trunks or cases. Shepacked her three leading samples into her own personal suitcase, eludedthe other tourists, secured an interpreter, and prepared to braveBahia. She returned just in time to catch the boat, flushed, tired, and orderless. Bahia would have none of her. 

In three days they would reach Rio de Janeiro, the magnificent. Theywould have three days there. She told herself that Bahia didn't count, anyway--sleepy little half-breed town! But the arrow rankled. It hadbeen the first to penetrate the armor of her business success. But shehad learned things from that experience at Bahia. She had learned thatthe South American dislikes the North American because his Northerncousin patronizes him. She learned that the North American businessfirm is thought by the Southern business man to be tricky anddishonest, and that, because the Northerner has not learned how to packa case of goods scientifically, as have the English, Germans, andFrench, the South American rages to pay cubic-feet rates on boxes thatare three-quarters empty. 

So it was with a heavy heart but a knowing head that she faced Rio deJaneiro. They had entered in the evening, the sunset splashing the bayand the hills in the foreground and the Sugar-loaf Mountain with anunbelievable riot of crimson and gold and orange and blue. Suddenlythe sun jerked down, as though pulled by a string, and the magic purplenight came up as though pulled by another. 

"Well, anyway, I've seen that, " breathed Emma McChesney thankfully. 

Next morning, she packed her three samples, as before, her heart heavy, her mind on Fat Ed Meyers coming up two weeks behind her. Three days inRio! And already she had bumped her impatient, quick-thinking, quick-acting North American business head up against the stone wall ofSouth American leisureliness and prejudice. She meant no irreverence, no impiety as she prayed, meanwhile packing Nos. 79, 65, and 48 intoher personal bag:

"O Lord, let Fat Ed Meyers have Bahia; but please, please help me toland Rio and Buenos Aires!"

Then, in smart tailored suit and hat, interpreter in tow, a prayer inher heart, and excitement blazing in cheeks and eyes, she made her wayto the dock, through the customs, into a cab that was to take her toher arena, the broad Avenida. 

Exactly two hours later, there dashed into the customs-house awell-dressed woman whose hat was very much over one ear. She wasrunning as only a woman runs when she's made up her mind to get there. She came hot-foot, helter-skelter, regardless of modishly cripplingskirt, past officers, past customs officials, into the section wherestood the one small sample-trunk that she had ordered down in case ofemergency. The trunk had not gone through the customs. It had noteven been opened. But Emma McChesney heeded not trifles like that. Rio de Janeiro had fallen for Featherlooms. Those three samples, Nos. 79, 65, and 48, that boasted style, cut, and workmanship never beforeseen in Rio, had turned the trick. They were as a taste of blood to ahungry lion. Rio wanted more!

Emma McChesney was kneeling before her trunk, had whipped out her key, unlocked it, and was swiftly selecting the numbers wanted from thetrays, her breath coming quickly, her deft fingers choosing unerringly, when an indignant voice said, in Portuguese, "It is forbidden!"

Emma McChesney did not glance around. Her head was buried in thedepths of the trunk. But her quick ears had caught the word, "PROHIBA!"

"Speak English, " she said, and went on unpacking. 

"INGLES!" shouted the official. "No!" Then, with a superhuman effort, as Emma McChesney stood up, her arms laden with Featherloom samples ofrainbow hues, "PARE! Ar-r-r-rest!"

Mrs. McChesney slammed down the trunk top, locked it, clutched hersamples firmly, and faced the enraged official. 

"Go 'way! I haven't time to be arrested this morning. This is my busyday. Call around this evening. "

Whereupon she fled to her waiting cab, leaving behind her a Brazilianofficial stunned and raging by turns. 

When she returned, happy, triumphant, order-laden, he was standingthere, stunned no longer but raging still. Emma McChesney hadforgotten all about him. The gold-braided official advanced, mustachios bristling. A volley of Portuguese burst from his long-pentlips. Emma McChesney glanced behind her. Her interpreter threw uphelpless hands, replying with a still more terrifying burst of vowels. Bewildered, a little frightened, Mrs. McChesney stood helplessly by. The official laid a none too gentle hand on her shoulder. A littlegroup of lesser officials stood, comic-opera fashion, in thebackground. And then Emma McChesney's New York training came to heraid. She ignored the voluble interpreter. She remained coollyunruffled by the fusillade of Portuguese. Quietly she opened her handbag and plunged her fingers deep, deep therein. Her blue eyes gazedconfidingly up into the Brazilian's snapping black ones, and as shewithdrew her hand from the depths of her purse, there passed from herwhite fingers to his brown ones that which is the Esperanto of thenations, the universal language understood from Broadway to Brazil. The hand on her shoulder relaxed and fell away. 

On deck once more, she encountered the suave Senor Pages. He stood atthe rail surveying Rio's shores with that lip-curling contempt of theArgentine for everything Brazilian. He regarded Emma McChesney'sradiant face. 

"You are pleased with this--this Indian Rio?"

Mrs. McChesney paused to gaze with him at the receding shores. 

"Like it! I'm afraid I haven't seen it. From here it looks likeConey. But it buys like Seattle. Like it! Well, I should say I do!"

"Ah, senora, " exclaimed Pages, distressed, "wait! In six days you willbehold Buenos Aires. Your New York, Londres, Paris--bah! You shalldrive with my wife and daughter through Palermo. You shall see jewels, motors, toilettes as never before. And you will visit myestablishment?" He raised an emphatic forefinger. "But surely!"

Emma McChesney regarded him solemnly. 

"I promise to do that. You may rely on me. "

Six days later they swept up the muddy and majestic Plata, whose colorshould have won it the name of River of Gold instead of River ofSilver. From the boat's upper deck, Emma McChesney beheld a sky linewhich was so like the sky line of her own New York that it gave her ashock. She was due for still another shock when, an hour later, shefound herself in a maelstrom of motors, cabs, street cars, newsboys, skyscrapers, pedestrians, policemen, subway stations. Where was theSouth American languor? Where the Argentine inertia? The rush androar of it, the bustle and the bang of it made the twenty-three-dayvoyage seem a myth. 

"I'm going to shut my eyes, " she told herself, "and then open themquickly. If that little brown traffic-policeman turns out to be a big, red-faced traffic-policeman, then I'm right, and this IS Broadway andForty-second. "

Shock number three came upon her entrance at the Grande Hotel. It hadbeen Emma McChesney's boast that her ten years on the road hadfamiliarized her with every type, grade, style, shape, cut, and mold ofhotel clerk. She knew him from the Knickerbocker to the Eagle House atWaterloo, Iowa. At the moment she entered the Grande Hotel, she knewshe had overlooked one. Accustomed though she was to the sartorialsplendors of the man behind the desk, she might easily have mistakenthis one for the president of the republic. In his glittering uniform, he looked a pass between the supreme chancellor of the K. P. 's in fullregalia and a prince of India during the Durbar. He was regal. He wasoverwhelming. He would have made the most splendid specimen of NorthAmerican hotel clerk look like a scullery boy. Mrs. McChesney spenttwo whole days in Buenos Aires before she discovered that she couldparalyze this personage with a peso. A peso is forty-three cents. 

Her experience at Bahia and at Rio de Janeiro had taught her things. So for two days, haunted, as she was, by visions of Fat Ed Meyerscoming up close behind her, she possessed her soul in patience andwaited. On the great firm of Pages y Hernandez rested the success ofthis expedition. When she thought of her little trick on Senor Pages, her blithe spirits sank. Suppose, after all, that this powerful SouthAmerican should resent her little Yankee joke!

Her trunks went through the customs. She secured an interpreter. Shearranged her samples with loving care. Style, cut, workmanship--sheran over their strong points in her mind. She looked at them as amother's eyes rest fondly on the shining faces, the well-brushed hair, the clean pinafores of her brood. And her heart swelled with pride. They lay on their tables, the artful knickerbockers, the gleamingpetticoats, the pink and blue pajamas, the bifurcated skirts. EmmaMcChesney ran one hand lightly over the navy blue satin folds of asample. 

"Pages or no Pages, you're a credit to your mother, " she said, whimsically. 

Up in her room once more, she selected her smartest tailor costume, hermost modish hat, the freshest of gloves and blouses. 

She chose the hours between four and six, when wheel traffic wassuspended in the Calle Florida and throughout the shopping-district, the narrow streets of which are congested to the point of suffocationat other times. 

As she swung down the street they turned to gaze after her--theseArgentines. The fat senoras turned, and the smartly costumed, sallowsenoritas, and the men--all of them. They spoke to her, these last, but she had expected that, and marched on with her free, swingingstride, her chin high, her color very bright. Into the great shop ofPages y Hernandez at last, up to the private offices, her breath cominga little quickly, into the presence of the shiny secretary--shinyteeth, shiny hair, shiny skin, shiny nails. He gazed upon EmmaMcChesney, the shine gleaming brighter. He took in his slim, brownfingers the card on which Senor Pages had scribbled that day on boardship. The shine became dazzling. He bowed low and backed his way intothe office of Senor Pages. 

A successful man is most impressive when in those surroundings whichhave been built up by his success. On shipboard, Senor Pages had beena genial, charming, distinguished fellow passenger. In his luxuriousbusiness office he still was genial, charming, but his environmentseemed to lend him a certain austerity. 

"Senora McChesney!"

("How awful that sounds!" Emma McChesney told herself. )

"We spoke of you but last night. And now you come to win the wager, yes?" He smiled, but shook his head. 

"Yes, " replied Emma McChesney. And tried to smile, too. 

Senor Pages waved a hand toward the outer office. 

"She is with you, this business friend who is also so charming?"

"Oh, yes, " said Emma McChesney, "she's--she's with me. " Then, as hemade a motion toward the push-button, which would summon the secretary:"No, don't do that! Wait a minute!" From her bag she drew her businesscard, presented it. "Read that first. "

Senor Pages read it. He looked up. Then he read it again. He gazedagain at Emma McChesney. Emma McChesney looked straight at him andtried in vain to remember ever having heard of the South American'ssense of humor. A moment passed. Her heart sank. Then Senor Pagesthrew back his fine head and laughed--laughed as the Latin laughs, emphasizing his mirth with many ejaculations and gestures. 

"Ah, you Northerners! You are too quick for us. Come; I myself mustsee this garment which you honor by selling. " His glance restedapprovingly on Emma McChesney's trim, smart figure. "That which yousell, it must be quite right. "

"I not only sell it, " said Emma McChesney; "I wear it. "

"That--how is it you Northerners say?--ah, yes--that settles it!"

Six weeks later, in his hotel room in Columbus, Ohio, T. A. Buck satreading a letter forwarded from New York and postmarked Argentina. Ashe read he chuckled, grew serious, chuckled again and allowed his cigarto grow cold. 

For the seventh time:

DEAR T. A. :

They've fallen for Featherlooms the way an Eskimo takes to gum-drops. My letter of credit is all shot to pieces, but it was worth it. Theymake you pay a separate license fee in each province, and South Americais just one darn province after another. If they'd lump a peddler'slicense for $5, 000 and tell you to go ahead, it would be cheaper. 

I landed Pages y Hernandez by a trick. The best of it is the man Iplayed it on saw the point and laughed with me. We North Americansbrag too much about our sense of humor. 

I thought ten years on the road had hardened me to the most fiendishefforts of a hotel chef. But the food at the Grande here makes aquarter-inch round steak with German fried look like Sherry's latesttriumph. You know I'm not fussy. I'm the kind of woman who, given herchoice of ice cream or cheese for dessert, will take cheese. Here, given my choice, I play safe and take neither. I've reached the pointwhere I make a meal of radishes. They kill their beef in the morningand serve it for lunch. It looks and tastes like an Ethiop's ear. ButI don't care, because I'm getting gorgeously thin. 

If the radishes hold out I'll invade Central America and Panama. I'veone eye on Valparaiso already. I know it sounds wild, but it means afuture and a fortune for Featherlooms. I find I don't even have totalk skirts. They're self-sellers. But I have to talk honesty andpacking. 

How did you hit it off with Ella Sweeney? Haven't seen a sign of FatEd Meyers. I'm getting nervous. Do you think he may have exploded atthe equator?

 EMMA. 

But kind fortune saw fit to add a last sweet drop to Emma McChesney'salready brimming cup. As she reached the docks on the day of herdeparture, clad in cool, crisp white from hat to shoes, her quick eyespied a red-faced, rotund, familiar figure disembarking from the NewYork boat, just arrived. The fates, grinning, had planned this momentlike a stage-manager. Fat Ed Meyers came heavily down the gangplank. His hat was off. He was mopping the top of his head with a large, damphandkerchief. His gaze swept over the busy landing-docks, dartedhither and thither, alighted on Emma McChesney with a shock, and restedthere. A distinct little shock went through that lady, too. But shewaited at the foot of her boat's gangway until the unbelievably nimbleMeyers reached her. 

He was a fiery spectacle. His cheeks were distended, his eyesprotuberant. He wasted no words. They understood each other, thosetwo. 

"Coming or going?"

"Going, " replied Emma McChesney. 

"Clean up this--this Bonez Areez, too?"

"Absolutely. "

"Did, huh?"

Meyers stood a moment panting, his little eyes glaring into her calmones. 

"Well, I beat you in Bahia, anyway. " he boasted. 

Emma McChesney snapped her fingers blithely. 

"Bah, for Bahia!" She took a step or two up the gangplank, and turned. "Good-by, Ed. And good luck. I can recommend the radishes, but passup the beef. Dangerous. "

Fat Ed Meyers, still staring, began to stutter unintelligibly, his lipsmoving while no words came. Emma McChesney held up a warning hand. 

"Don't do that, Ed! Not in this climate! A man of your build, too!I'm surprised. Consider the feelings of your firm!"

Fat Ed Meyers glared up at the white-clad, smiling, gracious figure. His hands unclenched. The words came. 

"Oh, if only you were a man for just ten minutes!" he moaned. 

II

THANKS TO MISS MORRISSEY

It was Fat Ed Meyers, of the Sans-Silk Skirt Company, who first saidthat Mrs. Emma McChesney was the Maude Adams of the business world. Itwas on the occasion of his being called to the carpet for his failureto make Sans-silks as popular as Emma McChesney's famed Featherlooms. He spoke in self-defense, heatedly. 

"It isn't Featherlooms. It's McChesney. Her line is no better thanours. It's her personality, not her petticoats. She's got a followingthat swears by her. If Maude Adams was to open on Broadway in 'EastLynne, ' they'd flock to see her, wouldn't they? Well, Emma McChesneycould sell hoop-skirts, I'm telling you. She could sell bustles. Shecould sell red-woolen mittens on Fifth Avenue!"

The title stuck. 

It was late in September when Mrs. McChesney, sunburned, decidedlyunder weight, but gloriously triumphant, returned from a four months'tour of South America. Against the earnest protests of her businesspartner, T. A. Buck, president of the Buck Featherloom PetticoatCompany, she had invaded the southern continent and left it abloom withFeatherlooms from the Plata to the Canal. 

Success was no stranger to Mrs. McChesney. This last business victoryhad not turned her head. But it had come perilously near to tiltingthat extraordinarily well-balanced part. A certain light in her eyes, a certain set of her chin, an added briskness of bearing, a cocky slantof the eyebrow revealed the fact that, though Mrs. McChesney's feetwere still on the ground, she might be said to be standing on tiptoe. 

When she had sailed from Brooklyn pier that June afternoon, four monthsbefore, she had cast her ordinary load of business responsibilities onthe unaccustomed shoulders of T. A. Buck. That elegant person, althoughpresident of the company which his father had founded, had never beenits real head. When trouble threatened in the workroom, it was to Mrs. McChesney that the forewoman came. When an irascible customer inGreen Bay, Wisconsin, waxed impatient over the delayed shipment of aFeatherloom order, it was to Emma McChesney that his typewrittenprotest was addressed. When the office machinery needed mental oiling, when a new hand demanded to be put on silk-work instead of mercerized, when a consignment of skirt-material turned out to be more than usuallymetallic, it was in Mrs. Emma McChesney's little private office thatthe tangle was unsnarled. 

She walked into that little office, now, at nine o'clock of a brilliantSeptember morning. It was a reassuring room, bright, orderly, workmanlike, reflecting the personality of its owner. She stood in thecenter of it now and looked about her, eyes glowing, lips parted. Sheraised her hands high above her head, then brought them down to hersides again with an unconsciously dramatic gesture that expressedtriumph, peace, content, relief, accomplishment, and a great and deepsatisfaction. T. A. Buck, in the doorway, saw the gesture--andunderstood. 

"Not so bad to get back to it, is it?"

"Bad! It's like a drink of cool spring water after too much champagne. In those miserable South American hotels, how I used to long for theorderliness and quiet of this!"

She took off hat and coat. In a vase on the desk, a cluster of yellowchrysanthemums shook their shaggy heads in welcome. Emma McChesney'squick eye jumped to them, then to Buck, who had come in and wassurveying the scene appreciatively. 

"You--of course. " She indicated the flowers with a nod and a radiantsmile. 

"Sorry--no. The office staff did that. There's a card of welcome, Ibelieve. "

"Oh, " said Emma McChesney. The smile was still there, but the radiancewas gone. 

She seated herself at her desk. Buck took the chair near by. Sheunlocked a drawer, opened it, rummaged, closed it again, unlockedanother. She patted the flat top of her desk with loving fingers. 

"I can't help it, " she said, with a little shamed laugh; "I'm so gladto be back. I'll probably hug the forewoman and bite a piece out ofthe first Featherloom I lay hands on. I had to use all my self-controlto keep from kissing Jake, the elevator-man, coming up. "

Out of the corner of her eye, Emma McChesney had been glancing at herhandsome business partner. She had found herself doing the same thingfrom the time he had met her at the dock late in the afternoon of theday before. Those four months had wrought some subtle change. Butwhat? Where? She frowned a moment in thought. 

Then:

"Is that a new suit, T. A. ?"

"This? Lord, no! Last summer's. Put it on because of this Julyhangover in September. Why?"

"Oh, I don't know"--vaguely--"I just--wondered. "

There was nothing vague about T. A. Buck, however. His old air ofleisureliness was gone. His very attitude as he sat there, erect, brisk, confident, was in direct contrast to his old, graceful indolence. 

"I'd like to go over the home grounds with you this morning, " he said. "Of course, in our talk last night, we didn't cover the South Americansituation thoroughly. But your letters and the orders told the story. You carried the thing through to success. It's marvelous! But westay-at-homes haven't been marking time during your absence. "

The puzzled frown still sat on Emma McChesney's brow. As thoughthinking aloud, she said, "Have you grown thinner, or fatter or--something?"

"Not an ounce. Weighed at the club yesterday. "

He leaned forward a little, his face suddenly very sober. 

"Emma, I want to tell you now that--that mother--she--I lost her just afew weeks after you sailed. "

Emma McChesney gave a little cry. She came quickly over to him, andone hand went to his shoulder as she stood looking down at him, herface all sympathy and contrition and sorrow. 

"And you didn't write me! You didn't even tell me, last night!"

"I didn't want to distress you. I knew you were having a hard-enoughpull down there without additional worries. It happened very suddenlywhile I was out on the road. I got the wire in Peoria. She died verysuddenly and quite painlessly. Her companion, Miss Tate, was with her. She had never been herself since Dad's death. "

"And you----"

"I could only do what was to be done. Then I went back on the road. Iclosed up the house, and now I've leased it. Of course it's big enoughfor a regiment. But we stayed on because mother was used to it. Isold some of the furniture, but stored the things she had loved. Sheleft some to you. "

"To me!"

"You know she used to enjoy your visits so much, partly because of theway in which you always talked of Dad. She left you some jewelry thatshe was fond of, and that colossal old mahogany buffet that you used torave over whenever you came up. Heaven knows what you'll do with it!It's a white elephant. If you add another story to it, you could rentit out as an apartment. "

"Indeed I shall take it, and cherish it, and polish it up myself everyweek--the beauty!"

She came back to her chair. They sat a moment in silence. Then EmmaMcChesney spoke musingly. 

"So that was it. " Buck looked up. "I sensed something--different. Ididn't know. I couldn't explain it. "

Buck passed a quick hand over his eyes, shook himself, sat up, erectand brisk again, and plunged, with a directness that was as startlingas it was new in him, into the details of Middle Western business. 

"Good!" exclaimed Emma McChesney. 

"It's all very well to know that Featherlooms are safe in SouthAmerica. But the important thing is to know how they're going in thecorn country. "

Buck stood up. 

"Suppose we transfer this talk to my office. All the papers are there, all the correspondence--all the orders, everything. You can get thewhole situation in half an hour. What's the use of talking whenfigures will tell you. "

He walked swiftly over to the door and stood there waiting. EmmaMcChesney rose. The puzzled look was there again. 

"No, that wasn't it, after all, " she said. 

"Eh?" said Buck. "Wasn't what?"

"Nothing, " replied Emma McChesney. 

"I'm wool-gathering this morning. I'm afraid it's going to take me aday or two to get back into harness again. "

"If you'd rather wait, if you think you'll be more fit to-morrow or theday after, we'll wait. There's no real hurry. I just thought----"

But Mrs. McChesney led the way across the hall that separated heroffice from her partner's. Halfway across, she stopped and surveyedthe big, bright, busy main office, with its clacking typewriters andrustle and crackle of papers and its air of concentration. 

"Why, you've run up a partition there between Miss Casey's desk and theworkroom door, haven't you?"

"Yes; it's much better that way. "

"Yes, of course. And--why, where are the boys' desks? Spalding's andHutchinson's, and--they're all gone!" She turned in amazement. 

"Break it to me! Aren't we using traveling men any more?"

Buck laughed his low, pleasant laugh. 

"Oh, yes; but I thought their desks belonged somewhere else than in themain office. They're now installed in the little room between the shopand Healy's office. Close quarters, but better than having them outhere where they were inclined to neglect their reports in order toshine in the eyes of that pretty new stenographer. There are one ortwo other changes. I hope you'll approve of them. "

"I'm sure I shall, " replied Emma McChesney, a little stiffly. 

In Buck's office, she settled back in her chair to watch him as hearranged neat sheaves of papers for her inspection. Her eyes traveledfrom his keen, eager face to the piles of paper and back again. 

"Tell me, did you hit it off with the Ella Sweeneys and the SadieHarrises of the great Middle West? Is business as bad as the howlerssay it is? You said something last night about a novelty bifurcatedskirt. Was that the new designer's idea? How have the early buyerstaken to it?"

Buck crooked an elbow over his head in self-defense. 

"Stop it! You make me feel like Rheims cathedral. Don't bombard untilnegotiations fail. "

He handed her the first sheaf of papers. But, before she began toread: "I'll say this much. Miss Sharp, of Berg Brothers, Omaha--theone you warned against as the human cactus--had me up for dinner. Well, I know you don't, but it's true. Her father and I hit it offjust like that. He's a character, that old boy. Ever meet him? No?And Miss Sharp told me something about herself that explains herporcupine pose. That poor child was engaged to a chap who was killedin the Spanish-American war, and she----"

"Kate Sharp!" interrupted Emma McChesney. "Why, T. A. Buck, in all hervinegary, narrow life, that girl has never had a beau, much less----"

Buck's eyebrows came up slightly. 

"Emma McChesney, you haven't developed--er--claws, have you?"

With a gasp, Emma McChesney plunged into the papers before her. For tenminutes, the silence of the room was unbroken except for the cracklingof papers. Then Emma McChesney put down the first sheaf and looked upat her business partner. 

"Is that a fair sample?" she demanded. 

"Very, " answered T. A. Buck, and handed her another set. 

Another ten minutes of silence. Emma McChesney reached out a hand forstill another set of papers. The pink of repressed excitement wastinting her cheeks. 

"They're--they're all like this?"

"Practically, yes. "

Mrs. McChesney faced him, her eyes wide, her breath coming fast. 

"T. A. Buck, " she slapped the papers before her smartly with the backof her hand, "this means you've broken our record for Middle Westernsales!"

"Yes, " said T. A. , quietly. "Dad would have enjoyed a morning likethis, wouldn't he?"

Emma McChesney stood up. 

"Enjoyed it! He is enjoying it. Don't tell me that T. A. , Senior, just because he is no longer on earth, has failed to get the joy ofknowing that his son has realized his fondest dreams. Why, I can feelhim here in this room, I can see those bright brown eyes of histwinkling behind his glasses. Not know it! Of course he knows it. "

Buck looked down at the desk, smiling curiously. 

"D'you know, I felt that way, too. "

Suddenly Emma McChesney began to laugh. It was not all mirth--thatlaugh. Buck waited. 

"And to think that I--I kindly and patronizingly handed you a littlebook full of tips on how to handle Western buyers, 'The Salesman'sWho's Who'--I, who used to think I was the witch of the West when itcame to selling! You, on your first selling-trip, have made me looklike--like a shoe-string peddler. "

Buck put out a hand suddenly. 

"Don't say that, Emma. I--somehow it takes away all the pleasure. "

"It's true. And now that I know, it explains a lot of things that I'vebeen puzzling about in the last twenty-four hours. "

"What kind of things?"

"The way you look and act and think. The way you carry your head. Theway you sit in a chair. The very words you use, your gestures, yourintonations. They're different. "

T. A. Buck, busy with his cigar, laughed a little self-consciously. 

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "You're imagining things. "

Which remark, while not a particularly happy one, certainly was not initself so unfortunate as to explain why Mrs. McChesney should haveturned rather suddenly and bolted into her own office across the halland closed the door behind her. 

T. A. Buck, quite cool and unruffled, viewed her sudden departurequizzically. Then he took his cigar from his mouth and stood eying ita moment with more attention, perhaps, than it deserved, in spite ofits fine aroma. When he put it back between his lips and sat down athis desk once more he was smiling ever so slightly. 

Then began a new order of things in the offices of the T. A. BuckFeatherloom Petticoat Company. Feet that once had turned quite as amatter of course toward the door marked "MRS. MCCHESNEY, " now took thedirection of the door opposite--and that door bore the name of Buck. Those four months of Mrs. McChesney's absence had put her partner tothe test. That acid test had washed away the accumulated dross ofyears and revealed the precious metal beneath. T. A. Buck had provedto be his father's son. 

If Mrs. McChesney noticed that the head office had miraculously movedacross the hall, if her sharp ears marked that the many feet that oncehad paused at her door now stopped at the door opposite, if sherealized that instead of, "I'd like your opinion on this, Mrs. McChesney, " she often heard the new, "I'll ask Mr. Buck, " she did notshow it by word or sign. 

The first of October found buyers still flocking into New York fromevery State in the country. Shrewd men and women, these--bargainhunters on a grand scale. Armed with the long spoon of businessknowledge, they came to skim the cream from factory and workroomproducts set forth for their inspection. 

For years, it had been Emma McChesney's quiet boast that of those whosebusiness brought them to the offices and showrooms of the T. A. BuckFeatherloom Petticoat Company, the foremost insisted on dealing onlywith her. She was proud of her following. She liked their loyalty. Their preference for her was the subtlest compliment that was in theirpower to pay. Ethel Morrissey, whose friendship dated back to the dayswhen Emma McChesney had sold Featherlooms through the Middle West, usedto say laughingly, her plump, comfortable shoulders shaking, "Emma, ifyou ever give me away by telling how many years I've been buyingFeatherlooms of you, I'll--I'll call down upon you the spinster'scurse. "

Early Monday morning, Mrs. McChesney, coming down the hall from theworkroom, encountered Miss Ella Sweeney, of Klein & Company, DesMoines, Iowa, stepping out of the elevator. A very skittish MissSweeney, rustling, preening, conscious of her dangling black earringsand her Robespierre collar and her beauty-patch. Emma McChesney metthis apparition with outstretched, welcoming hand. 

"Ella Sweeney! Well, I'd almost given you up. You're late this fall. Come into my office. "

She led the way, not noticing that Miss Sweeney came reluctantly, hereyes on the closed door across the way. 

"Sit down, " said Emma McChesney, and pulled a chair nearer her desk. "No; wait a minute! Let me look at you. Now, Ella, don't try to tellme that THAT dress came from Des Moines, Iowa! Do I! Why, child, it'sdistinctive!"

Miss Sweeney, still standing, smiled a pleased but rather preoccupiedsmile. Her eyes roved toward the door. 

Emma McChesney, radiating good will and energy, went on:

"Wait till you see our new samples! You'll buy a million dollars'worth. Just let me lead you to our new Walk-Easy bifurcated skirt. Wecall it the 'one-stepper's delight. '" She put a hand on Ella Sweeney'sarm, preparatory to guiding her to the showrooms in the rear. But MissSweeney's strange reluctance grew into resolve. A blush, as real as itwas unaccustomed, arose to her bepowdered cheeks. 

"Is--I--that is--Mr. Buck is in, I suppose?"

"Mr. Buck? Oh, yes, he's in. "

Miss Sweeney's eyes sought the closed door across the hall. 

"Is that--his office?"

Emma McChesney stiffened a little. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "You have guessed it, " she said crisply. "Mr. Buck's name is on thedoor, and you are looking at it. "

Miss Sweeney looked down, looked up, twiddled the chain about her neck. 

"You want to see Mr. Buck?" asked Emma McChesney quietly. 

Miss Sweeney simpered down at her glove-tips, fluttered her eyelids. 

"Well--yes--I--I--you see, I bought of him this year, and when you buyof a person, why, naturally, you----"

"Naturally; I understand. "

She walked across the hall, threw open the door, and met T. A. Buck'sglance coolly. 

"Mr. Buck, Miss Sweeney, of Des Moines, is here, and I'm sure you wantto see her. This way, Miss Sweeney. "

Miss Sweeney, sidling, blushing, fluttering, teetered in. EmmaMcChesney, just before she closed the door, saw a little spasm crossBuck's face. It was gone so quickly, and a radiant smile sat there soreassuringly, that she wondered if she had not been mistaken, afterall. He had advanced, hand outstretched, with:

"Miss Sweeney! It--it's wonderful to see you again! You'relooking----"

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

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

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

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

Emma McChesney was only human, after all. 

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

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

"My dear, " she whispered, "his eyes! And his manner! You mustbe--whatchamaycallit--adamant. Is that the way you pronounce it? Youknow 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 whichshe felt for this sort of thing. A heart-breaker! A cheaplady-killer! Whereupon in walked Sam Bloom, of the Paris Emporium, Duluth, one of Mrs. McChesney's stanchest admirers and a long-triedbusiness friend. 

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

So he had the men, too!

It was in this frame of mind that Miss Ethel Morrissey found her on themorning that she came into New York on her semi-annual buying-trip. Ethel Morrissey, plump, matronly-looking, quiet, with her hair fastgraying at the sides, had nothing of the skittish Middle Western buyerabout her. She might have passed for the mother of a brood of six ifit were not for her eyes--the shrewd, twinkling, far-sighted, reckoningeyes of the business woman. She and Emma McChesney had been friendsfrom the day that Ethel Morrissey had bought her first cautious bill ofFeatherlooms. Her love for Emma McChesney had much of the maternal init. She felt a personal pride in Emma McChesney's work, her success, her clean reputation, her life of self-denial for her son Jock. WhenEthel Morrissey was planned by her Maker, she had not been meant to bewasted on the skirt-and-suit department of a small-town store. Thatbroad, gracious breast had been planned as a resting-place for heads inneed of comfort. Those plump, firm arms were meant to enfold the weakand distressed. Those capable hands should have smoothed troubledheads and patted plump cheeks, instead of wasting their gifts infolding piles of petticoats and deftly twitching a plait or a tuck intoplace. She was playing Rosalind in buskins when she should have beencast for the Nurse. 

She entered Emma McChesney's office, now, in her quiet blue suit andher neat hat, and she looked very sane and cheerful and rosy-cheekedand dependable. At least, so Emma McChesney thought, as she kissedher, while the plump arms held her close. 

Ethel Morrissey, the hugging process completed, held her off and eyedher. 

"Well, Emma McChesney, flourish your Featherlooms for me. I want tobuy and get it over, so we can talk. "

"Are you sure that you want to buy of me?" asked Emma McChesney, alittle wearily. 

"What's the joke?"

"I'm not joking. I thought that perhaps you might prefer to see Mr. Buck this trip. "

Ethel Morrissey placed one forefinger under Emma McChesney's chin andturned that lady's face toward her and gazed at her long andthoughtfully--the most trying test of courage in the world, that, toone whose eyes fear meeting yours. Emma McChesney, bravest of women, tried to withstand it, and failed. The next instant her head lay onEthel Morrissey's broad breast, her hands were clutching the plumpshoulders, her cheek was being patted soothingly by the kind hands. 

"Now, now--what is it, dear? Tell Ethel. Yes; I do know, but tell me, anyway. It'll do you good. "

And Emma McChesney told her. When she had finished:

"You bathe your eyes, Emma, and put on your hat and we'll eat. Oh, yes, you will. A cup of tea, anyway. Isn't there some little cool foolplace where I can be comfortable on a hot day like this--where we cantalk comfortably? I've got at least an hour's conversation in me. "

With the first sip of her first cup of tea, Ethel Morrissey began tounload that burden of conversation. 

"Emma, this is the best thing that could have happened to you. Oh, yes, it is. The queer thing about it is that it didn't happen sooner. Itwas bound to come. You know, Emma, the Lord lets a woman climb just sohigh up the mountain of success. And then, when she gets too cocky, when she begins to measure her wits and brain and strength against thatof men, and finds herself superior, he just taps her smartly on thehead and shins, so that she stumbles, falls, and rolls down a few mileson the road she has traveled so painfully. He does it just as a gentlereminder to her that she's only a woman, after all. Oh, I know allabout this feminist talk. But this thing's been proven. Look at whathappened to--to Joan of Arc, and Becky Sharp, and Mary Queen of Scots, and--yes, I have been spending my evenings reading. Now, stop laughingat your old Ethel, Emma McChesney!"

"You meant me to laugh, dear old thing. I don't feel much like it, though. I don't see why I should be reminded of my lowly state. Heaven knows I haven't been so terrifically pleased with myself! Ofcourse, that South American trip was--well, gratifying. But I earnedit. For ten years I lived with head in a sample-trunk, didn't I? Iworked hard enough to win the love of all these Westerners. It wasn'tall walking dreamily down Main Street, strewing Featherlooms along mypath. "

Ethel Morrissey stirred her second cup of tea, sipped, stirred, smiled, then reached over and patted Emma McChesney's hand. 

"Emma, I'm a wise old party, and I can see that it isn't all pique withyou. It's something else--something deeper. Oh, yes, it is! Now letme tell you what happened when T. A. Buck invaded your old-timeterritory. I was busy up in my department the morning he came in. Ihad my head in a rack of coats, and a henny customer waiting. But Isensed something stirring, and I stuck my head out of the coat-rack inwhich I was fumbling. The department was aflutter like a poultry-yard. Every woman in it, from the little new Swede stock-girl to GladysHemingway, who is only working to wear out her old clothes, wasstanding with her face toward the elevator, and on her face a look thatwould make the ordinary door-mat marked 'Welcome' seem like an insult. I kind of smoothed my back hair, because I knew that only one thingcould bring that look into a woman's face. And down the aisle came atall, slim, distinguished-looking, wonderfully tailored, chamois-gloved, walking-sticked Fifth Avenue person with EYES! Ofcourse, I knew. But the other girls didn't. They just sort of fellback at his approach, smitten. He didn't even raise an eyebrow to doit. Now, Emma, I'm not exaggerating. I know what effect he had on meand my girls, and, for that matter, every other man or woman in thestore. Why, he was a dream realized to most of 'em. These shrewd, clever buyer-girls know plenty of men--business men of the slap-bang, horn-blowing, bluff, good-natured, hello-kid kind--the kind that takesyou out to dinner and blows cigar smoke in your face. Along comes thischap, elegant, well dressed and not even conscious of it, polished, suave, smooth, low-voiced, well bred. Why, when he spoke to a girl, itwas the subtlest kind of flattery. Can you see little Sadie Harris, ofDuluth, drawing a mental comparison between Sam Bloom, thestore-manager, and this fascinating devil--Sam, red-faced, loud voiced, shirt-sleeving it around the sample room, his hat pushed 'way back onhis head, chewing his cigar like mad, and wild-eyed for fear he'sbuying wrong? Why, child, in our town, nobody carries a cane exceptthe Elks when they have their annual parade, and old man Schwenkel, who's lame. And yet we all accepted that yellow walking-stick ofBuck's. It belonged to him. There isn't a skirt-buyer in the MiddleWest that doesn't dream of him all night and push Featherlooms in thestore all day. Emma, I'm old and fat and fifty, but when I had dinnerwith him at the Manitoba House that evening, I caught myself makingeyes at him, knowing that every woman in the dining-room would havegiven her front teeth to be where I was. "

After which extensive period, Ethel Morrissey helped herself to herthird cup of tea. Emma McChesney relaxed a little and laughed atremulous little laugh. 

"Oh, well, I suppose I must not hope to combat such formidable rivalsas walking-sticks, chamois gloves, and EYES. My business arguments arefutile compared to those. "

Ethel Morrissey delivered herself of a last shot. 

"You're wrong, Emma. Those things helped him, but they didn't sell hisline. He sold Featherlooms out of salesmanship, and because he soundedconvincing and sincere and businesslike--and he had the samples. Itwasn't all bunk. It was three-quarters business. Those two make aninvincible combination. "

An hour later, Ethel Morrissey was shrewdly selecting her winter lineof Featherlooms from the stock in the showrooms of the T. A. BuckCompany. They went about their business transaction, these two, withthe cool abruptness of men, speaking little, and then only of prices, discounts, dating, shipping. Their luncheon conversation of an hourbefore seemed an impossibility. 

"You'll have dinner with me to-night?" Emma asked. "Up at myapartment, all cozy?"

"Not to-night, dearie. I'll be in bed by eight. I'm not the girl Iused to be. Time was when a New York buying-trip was a vacation. Nowit's a chore. "

She took Emma McChesney's hand and patted it. 

"If you've got something real nice for dinner, though, and feel likecompany, why don't you ask--somebody else that's lonesome. "

After which, Ethel Morrissey laughed her wickedest and waved a suddengood-by with a last word about seeing her to-morrow. 

Emma McChesney, her color high, entered her office. It was fiveo'clock. She cleared her desk in half an hour, breathed a sigh ofweariness, reached for hat and jacket, donned them, and, turning outher lights, closed her door behind her for the day. At that sameinstant, T. A. Buck slammed his own door and walked briskly down thehall. They met at the elevator. 

They descended in silence. The street gained, they paused uncertainly. 

"Won't you stay down and have dinner with me to-night, Emma?"

"Thanks so much, T. A. Not to-night. "

"I'm--sorry. "

"Good night. "

"Good night. "

She turned away. He stood there, in the busy street, lookingirresolutely and not at all eagerly in the direction of his club, perhaps, or his hotel, or whatever shelter he sought after businesshours. Something in his attitude--the loneliness of it, theuncertainty, the indecision--smote Emma McChesney with a great pang. She came swiftly back. 

"I wish you'd come home to dinner with me. I don't know what Annie'llgive us. Probably bread pudding. She does, when she's left to her owndevices. But I--I wish you would. " She looked up at him almost shyly. 

T. A. Buck took Emma McChesney's arm in a rather unnecessarily firmgrip and propelled her, surprised and protesting, in the direction ofthe nearest vacant taxi. 

"But, T. A. ! This is idiotic! Why take a cab to go home from theoffice on a--a week day?"

"In with you! Besides, I never have a chance to take one from theoffice on Sunday, do I? Does Annie always cook enough for two?"

Apparently Annie did. Annie was something of a witch, in her way. Shewhisked about, wrought certain changes, did things with asparagus andmayonnaise, lighted the rose-shaded table-candles. No one noticed thatdinner was twenty minutes late. 

Together they admired the great mahogany buffet that Emma hadmiraculously found space for in the little dining-room. 

"It glows like a great, deep ruby, doesn't it?" she said proudly. "Youshould see Annie circle around it with the carpet-sweeper. She knowsone bump would be followed by instant death. "

Looking back on it, afterward, they remembered that the dinner was avery silent one. They did not notice their wordlessness at the time. Once, when the chops came on, Buck said absently, "Oh, I had those for l----" Then he stopped abruptly. 

Emma McChesney smiled. 

"Your mother trained you well, " she said. 

The October night had grown cool. Annie had lighted a wood fire in theliving-room. 

"That was what attracted me to this apartment in the first place, " Mrs. McChesney said, as they left the dining-room. "A fireplace--apractical, real, wood-burning fireplace in a New York apartment! I'dhave signed the lease if the plaster had been falling in chunks and thebathtub had been zinc. "

"That's because fireplaces mean home--in our minds, " said Buck. 

He sat looking into the heart of the glow. There fell another of thosecomfortable silences. 

"T. A. , I--I want to tell you that I know I've been acting the cat eversince I got home from South America and found that you had takencharge. You see, you had spoiled me. The thing that has happened tome is the thing that always happens to those who assume to bedictators. I just want you to know, now, that I'm glad and proud andhappy because you have come into your own. It hurt me just at first. That was the pride of me. I'm quite over that now. You're not onlypresident of the T. A. Buck Company in name. You're its actual head. And that's as it should be. Long live the King!"

Buck sat silent a moment. Then, "I had to do it, Emma. " She looked up. "You have a wonderful brain, "said Buck then, and the two utterances seemed connected in his mind. 

They seemed to bring no great satisfaction to the woman to whom headdressed them, however. She thanked him dryly, as women do when theirbrain is dragged into an intimate conversation. 

"But, " said Buck, and suddenly stood up, looking at her very intently, "it isn't for your mind that I love you this minute. I love you foryour eyes, Emma, and for your mouth--you have the tenderest, mostwomanly-sweet mouth in the world--and for your hair, and the way yourchin curves. I love you for your throat-line, and for the way you walkand talk and sit, for the way you look at me, and for the way you don'tlook at me. "

He reached down and gathered Emma McChesney, the alert, the aggressive, the capable, into his arms, quite as men gather the clingingest kind ofwoman. "And now suppose you tell me just why and how you love me. "

And Emma McChesney told him. 

When, at last, he was leaving, "Don't you think, " asked Emma McChesney, her hands on his shoulders, "that you overdid the fascination thing just the least leetle bit thereon the road?"

"Well, but you told me to entertain them, didn't you?"

"Yes, " reluctantly; "but I didn't tell you to consecrate your life to'em. The ordinary fat, middle-aged, every-day traveling man will neverbe able to sell Featherlooms in the Middle West again. They won't have'em. They'll never be satisfied with anything less than John Drewafter this. "

"Emma McChesney, you're not marrying me because a lot of overdressed, giggling, skittish old girls have taken a fancy to make eyes at me, areyou!"

Emma McChesney stood up very straight and tall. 

"I'm marrying you, T. A. , because you are a great, big, fine, upstanding, tender, wonderful----"

"Oh, well, then that's all right, " broke in Buck, a little tremulously. 

Emma McChesney's face grew serious. 

"But promise me one thing, T. A. Promise me that when you come homefor dinner at night, you'll never say, 'Good heavens, I had that forlunch!'"

III

A CLOSER CORPORATION

Front offices resemble back kitchens in this: they have always an earat the keyhole, an eye at the crack, a nose in the air. But

between the ordinary front office and the front office of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company there was a difference. Theemployees at Buck's--from Emil, the errand boy, to old Pop Henderson, who had started as errand boy himself twenty-five yearsbefore--possessed the quality of loyalty. They were loyal to thememory of old man Buck, because they had loved and respected him. Theywere loyal to Mrs. Emma McChesney, because she was Mrs. Emma McChesney(which amounts to the same reason). They were loyal to T. A. Buck, because he was his father's son. 

For three weeks the front office had been bewildered. Frombewilderment it passed to worry. A worried, bewildered front office isnot an efficient front office. Ever since Mrs. McChesney had come offthe road, at the death of old T. A. Buck, to assume the secretaryshipof the company which she had served faithfully for ten years, she hadset an example for the entire establishment. She was the pacemaker. Every day of her life she figuratively pressed the electric button thatset the wheels to whirring. At nine A. M. , sharp, she appeared, erect, brisk, alert, vibrating energy. Usually, the office staff had not yetswung into its gait. In a desultory way, it had been getting into itssateen sleevelets, adjusting its eye-shades, uncovering its typewriter, opening its ledgers, bringing out its files. Then, down the hall, wouldcome the sound of a firm, light, buoyant step. An electric thrillwould pass through the front office. Then the sunny, sincere, "Goodmorning!"

"'Morning, Mrs. McChesney!" the front office would chorus back. 

The day had begun for the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. 

Hortense, the blond stenographer (engaged to the shipping-clerk), noticed it first. The psychology of that is interesting. Hortense knewthat by nine-thirty Mrs. McChesney's desk would be clear and that thebuzzer would summon her. Hortense didn't mind taking dictation from T. A. Buck, though his method was hesitating and jerky, and he was likelyto employ quite casually a baffling and unaccustomed word, over whichHortense's scampering pencil would pause, struggle desperately, thenrace on. Hortense often was in for a quick, furtive session with herpocket-dictionary after one of T. A. 's periods. But with Mrs. McChesney, dictation was a joy. She knew what she wanted to say andshe always said it. The words she used were short, clean-cut, meaningful Anglo-Saxon words. She never used received when she coulduse got. Hers was the rapid-fire-gun method, each word sharp, welltimed, efficient. 

Imagine, then, Hortense staring wide-eyed and puzzled at a floundering, hesitating, absent-minded Mrs. McChesney--a Mrs. McChesney strangelystarry as to eyes, strangely dreamy as to mood, decidedly deficient asto dictation. Imagine a Hortense with pencil poised in air a full fiveminutes, waiting until Mrs. McChesney should come to herself with astart, frown, smile vaguely, pass a hand over her eyes, and say, "Letme see--where was I?"

"'And we find, on referring to your order, that the goods youmention----'" Hortense would prompt patiently. 

"Oh, yes, of course, " with an effort. Hortense was beginning to growalarmed. 

In T. A. Buck's office, just across the hall, the change was quite asnoticeable, but in another way. His leisurely drawl was gone. Hisdeliberate manner was replaced by a brisk, quick-thinking, quick-speaking one. His words were brief and to the point. He seemedto be riding on the crest of an excitement-wave. And, as he dictated, he smiled. 

Hortense stood it for a week. Then she unburdened herself to MissKelly, the assistant bookkeeper. Miss Kelly evinced no surprise at herdisclosures. 

"I was just talking about it to Pop yesterday. She acts worried, doesn't she? And yet, not exactly worried, either. Do you suppose itcan be that son of hers--what's his name? Jock. "

Hortense shook her head. 

"No; he's all right. She had a letter from him yesterday. He's got agrand position in Chicago, and he's going to marry that girl he was sostuck on here. And it isn't that, either, because Mrs. McChesney likesher. I can tell by the way she talks about her. I ought to know. Look how Henry's ma acted toward me when we were first engaged!"

The front office buzzed with it. It crept into the workroom--into theshipping-room. It penetrated the frowsy head of Jake, theelevator-man. As the days went on and the tempo of the front officeslackened with that of the two bright little inner offices, only onemember of the whole staff remained unmoved, incurious, taciturn. PopHenderson listened, one scant old eyebrow raised knowingly, a whimsicalhalf-smile screwing up his wrinkled face. 

At the end of three weeks, Hortense, with that display of temperamentso often encountered in young ladies of her profession, announced indesperation that, if this thing kept on, she was going to forgetherself and jeopardize her position by demanding to know outright whatthe trouble was. 

From the direction of Pop Henderson's inky retreat, there came thesound of a dry chuckle. Pop Henderson had been chuckling in just thatway for three weeks, now. It was getting on the nerves of hiscolleagues. 

"If you ever spring the joke that's kept you giggling for a month, "snapped Hortense, "it'll break up the office. "

Pop Henderson removed his eye-shade very deliberately, passed his thin, cramped old hand over his scant gray locks to his bald spot, climbeddown stiffly from his stool, ambled to the center of the room, and, head cocked like a knowing old brown sparrow, regarded the pertHortense over his spectacles and under his spectacles and, finally, through his spectacles. 

"Young folks now 'days, " began Pop Henderson dryly, "are so darned cuteand knowin' that when an old fellow cuts in ahead of 'em for once, helikes to hug the joke to himself a while before he springs it. " Therewas no acid in his tone. He was beaming very benignantly down upon thelittle blond stenographer. "You say that Mrs. Mack isabsent-minded-like and dreamy, and that young T. A. Acts like he'dswallowed an electric battery. Well, when it comes to that, I've seenyou many a time, when you didn't know any one was lookin', just sittingthere at your typewriter, with your hands kind of poised halfway, andyour lips sort of parted, and your eyes just gazing away somewhere offin the distance for fifteen minutes at a stretch. And out there in theshipping-room Henry's singing like a whole minstrel troupe all daylong, when he isn't whistlin' so loud you can hear him over 's far asEighth Avenue. " Then, as the red surged up through the girl's fairskin, "Well?" drawled old Pop Henderson, and the dry chuckle threatenedagain. "We-e-ell?"

"Why, Pop Henderson!" exploded Miss Kelly from her cage. "Why--Pop--Henderson!"

In those six words the brisk and agile-minded Miss Kelly expressed thesurprise and the awed conviction of the office staff. 

Pop Henderson trotted over to the water-cooler, drew a brimming glass, drank it off, and gave vent to a great exhaust of breath. He tried notto strut as he crossed back to his desk, climbed his stool, adjustedhis eye-shade, and, with a last throaty chuckle, plunged into his booksagain. 

But his words already were working their wonders. The office, afterthe first shock, was flooded with a new atmosphere--a subtle, pervasiveair of hushed happiness, of tender solicitude. It went about like amother who has found her child asleep at play, and who steals awayatiptoe, finger on lip, lips smiling tenderly. 

The delicate antennae of Emma McChesney's mind sensed the change. 

Perhaps she read something in the glowing eyes of her sister-in-love, Hortense. Perhaps she caught a new tone in Miss Kelly's voice or theforewoman's. Perhaps a whisper from the outer office reached her desk. The very afternoon of Pop Henderson's electrifying speech, Mrs. McChesney crossed to T. A. Buck's office, shut the door after her, lowered her voice discreetly, and said, "T. A. , they're on. "

"What makes you think so?"

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

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

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

"But we didn't want them to know. Not yet--until--until just beforethe----"

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

"There you are!" exclaimed Buck, and rammed the offending hands intohis 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, insteadof being allowed to look at you with the expression that a mannaturally 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 captainof 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 todo with business. You've avoided my office as you would a small-poxcamp. You've greeted me with a what-can-I-do-for-you air when I'vedared to invade yours. You couldn't have been less cordial to a bookagent. 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 pattedone 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 daysmore to go. Let's stick it out as we've begun. It has been best forus, for the office, for the business. The next time you find yourselfchoked 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 concentrationthat would have unnerved a woman less poised. 

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

"Don't say it, T. A. Because you don't mean it. I've had to fight formost of my happiness. I've never before found it ready at hand. I'vealways had to dig for it with a shovel and a spade and a pickax, andthen blast. I had almost twenty years of that--from the time I waseighteen until I was thirty-eight. It taught me to take my happinessseriously and my troubles lightly. " She shut her eyes for a moment, and her voice was very low and very deep and very vibrant. "So, whenI'm coolest and evenest and most mental, T. A. , you may know that I'vestruck gold. "

A great glow illumined Buck's fine eyes. He took two quick steps inher direction. But Emma McChesney, one hand on the door-knob, warnedhim off with the other. 

"Hey--wait a minute!" pleaded Buck. 

"Can't. I've a fitting at the tailor's at three-thirty--my new suit. Wait till you see it!"

"The dickens you have! But so have I"--he jerked out his watch--"atthree-thirty! It's the suit I'm going to wear when I travel as ablushing bridegroom. "

"So's mine. And look here, T. A. ! We can't both leave this place fora fitting. It's absurd. If this keeps on, it will break up thebusiness. We'll have to get married one at a time--or, at least, getour trousseaux one at a time. What's your suit?"

"Sort of brown. "

"Brown? So's mine! Good heavens, T. A. , we'll look like a minstreltroupe!"

Buck sighed resignedly. 

"If I telephone my tailor that I can't make it until four-thirty, willyou promise to be back by that time?"

"Yes; but remember, if your bride appears in a skirt that sags in theback or a coat that bunches across the shoulders, the crime will lie atyour door. "

So it was that the lynx-eyed office staff began to wonder if, afterall, Pop Henderson was the wizard that he had claimed to be. 

During working hours, Mrs. McChesney held rigidly to business. Herhandsome partner tried bravely to follow her example. If he failedoccasionally, perhaps Emma McChesney was not so displeased as shepretended to be. A business discussion, deeply interesting to both, was likely to run thus:

Buck, entering her office briskly, papers in hand: "Mrs. McChesney--ahem!--I have here a letter from Singer & French, Columbus, Ohio. They ask for an extension. They've had ninety days. "

"That's enough. That firm's slow pay, and always will be until oldSinger has the good taste and common sense to retire. It isn't becausethe stock doesn't move. Singer simply believes in not paying foranything until he has to. If I were you, I'd write him that this is abusiness house, not a charitable institution---- No, don't do that. Itisn't politic. But you know what I mean. "

"H'm; yes. " A silence. "Emma, that's a fiendishly becoming gown. "

"Now, T. A. !"

"But it is! It--it's so kind of loose, and yet clinging, and thosewhite collar-and-cuff things----"

"T. A. Buck, I've worn this thing down to the office every day for amonth. It shines in the back. Besides, you promised not to----"

"Oh, darn it all, Emma, I'm human, you know! How do you suppose I canstand here and look at you and not----"

Emma McChesney (pressing the buzzer that summons Hortense): "You know, Tim, I don't exactly hate you this morning, either. But business isbusiness. Stop looking at me like that!" Then, to Hortense, in thedoorway: "Just take this letter, Miss Stotz-Singer & French, Columbus, Ohio. Dear Sirs: Yours of the tenth at hand. Period. Regarding yourrequest for further extension we wish to say that, in view of thefact----"

T. A. Buck, half resentful, half amused, wholly admiring, woulddisappear. But Hortense, eyes demurely cast down at her notebook, wasnot deceived. 

"Say, " she confided to Miss Kelly, "they think they've got me fooled. But I'm wise. Don't I know? When Henry passes through the officehere, from the shipping-room, he looks at me just as cool andindifferent. Before we announced it, we had you all guessing, didn'twe? But I can see something back of that look that the rest of youcan't get. Well, when Mr. Buck looks at her, I can see the same thingin his eyes. Say, when it comes to seeing the love-light through thefog, I'm there with the spy-glass. "

If Emma McChesney held herself well in leash during the busy day, sherelished her happiness none the less when she could allow herself thefull savor of it. When a girl of eighteen she had married a man of thesort that must put whisky into his stomach before the machinery of hisday would take up its creaking round. 

Out of the degradation of that marriage she had emerged triumphantly, sweet and unsullied, and she had succeeded in bringing her son, JockMcChesney, out into the clear sunlight with her. 

The evenings spent with T. A. Buck, the man of fine instincts, ofbreeding, of proven worth, of rare tenderness, filled her with a greatpeace and happiness. When doubts assailed her, it was not for herselfbut for him. Sometimes the fear would clutch her as they sat beforethe fire in the sitting-room of her comfortable little apartment. Shewould voice those fears for the very joy of having them stilled. 

"T. A. , this is too much happiness. I'm--I'm afraid. After all, you're a young man, though you are a bit older than I in actual years. But men of your age marry girls of eighteen. You're handsome. Andyou've brains, family, breeding, money. Any girl in New York would beglad to marry you--those tall, slim, exquisite young girls. Young!And well bred, and poised and fresh and sweet and lovable. You seethem every day on Fifth Avenue, exquisitely dressed, entirelydesirable. They make me feel--old--old and battered. I've sold goodson the road. I've fought and worked and struggled. And it has leftits mark. I did it for the boy, God bless him! And I'm glad I did it. But it put me out of the class of that girl you see on----"

"Yes, Emma; you're not at all in the class with that girl you see everyday on Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue's full of her--hundreds of her, thousands of her. Perhaps, five years ago, before I had worked side byside with you, I might have been attracted by that girl you see everyday on Fifth Avenue. You don't see a procession of Emma McChesneysevery day on Fifth Avenue--not by a long shot! Why? Because there'sonly one of her. She doesn't come in dozen lots. I know that thatgirl you see every day on Fifth Avenue is all that I deserve. But, bysome heaven-sent miracle, I'm to have this Emma McChesney woman! Idon't know how it came to be true. I don't deserve it. But it istrue, and that's enough for me. "

Emma McChesney would look up at him, eyes wet, mouth smiling. 

"T. A. , you're balm and myrrh and incense and meat and drink to me. Iwish I had words to tell you what I'm thinking now. But I haven't. SoI'll just cover it up. We both know it's there. And I'll tell you thatyou make love like a 'movie' hero. Yes, you do! Better than a 'movie'hero, because, in the films, the heroine always has to turn to face thecamera, which makes it necessary for him to make love down the back ofher neck. "

But T. A. Buck was unsmiling. 

"Don't trifle, Emma. And don't think you can fool me that way. Ihaven't finished. I want to settle this Fifth Avenue creature for alltime. What I have to say is this: I think you are moreattractive--finer, bigger, more rounded in character and manner, mellower, sweeter, sounder, with all your angles and corners rubbedsmooth, saner, better poised than any woman I have ever known. Andwhat I am to-day you have made me, directly and indirectly, byassociation and by actual orders, by suggestion, and by direct contact. What you did for Jock, purposefully and by force, you did for me, too. Not so directly, perhaps, but with the same result. Emma McChesney, you've made--actually made, molded, shaped, and turned out two men. You're the greatest sculptor that ever lived. You could make ascarecrow in a field get up and achieve. Everywhere one sees womenover-wrought, over-stimulated, eager, tense. When there appears onewho has herself in leash, balanced, tolerant, poised, sane, composed, she restores your faith in things. You lean on her, spiritually. Iknow I need you more than you need me, Emma. And I know you won't loveme the less for that. There--that's about all for this evening. "

"I think, " breathed Emma McChesney in a choked little voice, "thatthat's about--enough. "

Two days before the date set for their very quiet wedding, they toldthe heads of office and workroom. Office and workroom, somewhat moistas to eye and flushed as to cheek and highly congratulatory, provedtheir knowingness by promptly presenting to their employers a verycostly and unbelievably hideous set of mantel ornaments and clock, calculated to strike horror to the heart of any woman who has lovinglyplanned the furnishing of her drawing-room. Pop Henderson, after somepreliminary wrestling with collar, necktie, spectacles, and voice, launched forth on a presentation speech that threatened to close downthe works for the day. Emma McChesney heard it, tears in her eyes. T. A. Buck gnawed his mustache. And when Pop Henderson's cracked oldvoice broke altogether in the passage that touched on his departedemployer, old T. A. Buck, and the great happiness that this occasionwould have brought him, Emma's hand met young T. A. 's and rested there. Hortense and Henry, standing very close together all through thespeech, had, in this respect, anticipated their employers by severalminutes. 

They were to be away two weeks only. No one knew just where, exceptthat some small part of the trip was to be spent on a flying visit toyoung Jock McChesney out in Chicago. He himself was to be married verysoon. Emma McChesney had rather startled her very good-lookinghusband-to-be by whirling about at him with, "T. A. , do you realize that you're very likely to be a step-grandfathersome fine day not so far away!"

T. A. Had gazed at her for a rather shocked moment, swallowed hard, smiled, and said, "Even that doesn't scare me, Emma. "

Everything had been planned down to the last detail. Mrs. McChesney'slittle apartment had been subleased, and a very smart one taken andfurnished almost complete, with Annie installed in the kitchen and ademure parlor-maid engaged. 

"When we come back, we'll come home, " T. A. Buck had said. "Home!"

There had been much to do, but it had all been done smoothly andexpertly, under the direction of these two who had learned how to plan, direct, and carry out. 

Then, on the last day, Emma McChesney, visibly perturbed, entered herpartner's office, a letter in her hand. 

"This is ghastly!" she exclaimed. 

Buck pulled out a chair for her. 

"Klein cancel his order again?"

"No. And don't ask me to sit down. Be thankful that I don't blow up. "

"Is it as bad as that?"

"Bad! Here--read that! No, don't read it; I'll tell you. It'llrelieve my feelings. You know how I've been angling and scheming andcontriving and plotting for years to get an exclusive order from Gage &Fosdick. Of course we've had a nice little order every few months, butwhat's that from the biggest mail-order house in the world? And now, out of a blue sky, comes this bolt from O'Malley, who buys our stuff, saying that he's coming on the tenth--that's next week--that he'splanned to establish our line with their trade, and that he wants us tobe prepared for a record-breaking order. I've fairly prayed for this. And now--what shall we do?"

"Do?"--smoothly--"just write the gentleman and tell him you're busygetting married this week and next, and that, by a singularcoincidence, your partner is similarly engaged; that our manager willattend to him with all care and courtesy, unless he can postpone histrip until our return. Suggest that he call around a week or twolater. "

"T. A. Buck, I know it isn't considered good form to rage and glare atone's fiance on the eve of one's wedding-day. If this were a weekearlier or a week later, I'd be tempted to--shake you!"

Buck stood up, came over to her, and laid a hand very gently on herarm. With the other hand he took the letter from her fingers. 

"Emma, you're tired, and a little excited. You've been under anunusual physical and mental strain for the last few weeks. Give methat letter. I'll answer it. This kind of thing"--he held up theletter--"has meant everything to you. If it had not, where would I beto-day? But to-night, Emma, it doesn't mean a thing. Not--one thing. "

Slowly Emma McChesney's tense body relaxed. A great sigh that had init weariness and relief and acquiescence came from her. She smiled everso faintly. 

"I've been a ramrod so long it's going to be hard to learn to be aclinging vine. I've been my own support for so many years, I don't usea trellis very gracefully--yet. But I think I'll get the hang of itvery soon. "

She turned toward the door, crossed to her own office, looked all aboutat the orderly, ship-shape room that reflected her personality--as didany room she occupied. 

"Just the same, " she called out, over her shoulder, to Buck in thedoorway, "I hate like fury to see that order slide. "

In hat and coat and furs she stood a moment, her fingers on theelectric switch, her eyes very bright and wide. The memories of tenyears, fifteen years, twenty years crowded up around her and filled thelittle room. Some of them were golden and some of them were black; afew had power to frighten her, even now. So she turned out the light, stood for just another moment there in the darkness, then stepped outinto the hall, closed the door softly behind her, and stood face toface with the lettering on the glass panel of the door--the letteringthat spelled the name, "MRS. MCCHESNEY. "

T. A. Buck watched her in silence. She reached up with one waveringforefinger and touched each of the twelve letters, one after the other. Then she spread her hand wide, blotting out the second word. And whenshe turned away, one saw--she being Emma McChesney, and a woman, andvery tired and rather sentimental, and a bit hysterical and altogetherhappy--that, though she was smiling, her eyes were wet. 

In her ten years on the road, visiting town after town, catchingtrains, jolting about in rumbling hotel 'buses or musty-smellingsmall-town hacks, living in hotels, good, bad, and indifferent, EmmaMcChesney had come upon hundreds of rice-strewn, ribbon-bedecked bridalcouples. She had leaned from her window at many a railway station tosee the barbaric and cruel old custom of bride-and-bridegroom baiting. She had smiled very tenderly--and rather sadly, and hopefully, too--upon the boy and girl who rushed breathless into the car in aflurry of white streamers, flowers, old shoes, laughter, cheers, lastmessages. Now, as in a dream, she found herself actually of these. Ofrice, old shoes, and badinage there had been none, it is true. Shestood quietly by while Buck attended to their trunks, just as she hadseen it done by hundreds of helpless little cotton-wool women who hadnever checked a trunk in their lives--she, who had spent ten years ofher life wrestling with trunks and baggagemen and porters. Once therewas some trifling mistake--Buck's fault. Emma, with her experience ofthe road, saw his error. She could have set him right with a word. Itwas on the tip of her tongue. By sheer force of will she withheld thatword, fought back the almost overwhelming inclination to take things inhand, set them right. It was just an incident, almost trifling initself. But its import was tremendous, for her conduct, that moment, shaped the happiness of their future life together. 

Emma had said that there would be no rude awakenings for them, nostartling shocks. 

"There isn't a thing we don't know about each other, " she had said. "We each know the other's weaknesses and strength. I hate the way yougnaw your mustache when you're troubled, and I think the fuss you makewhen the waiter pours your coffee without first having given you sugarand cream is the most absurd thing I've ever seen. But, then, I knowhow it annoys you to see me sitting with one slipper dangling from mytoe, when I'm particularly comfortable and snug. You know how I likemy eggs, and you think it's immoral. I suppose we're really set in ourways. It's going to be interesting to watch each other shift. "

"Just the same, " Buck said, "I didn't dream there was any woman livingwho could actually make a Pullman drawing-room look homelike. "

"Any woman who has spent a fourth of her life in hotels and trainslearns that trick. She has to. If she happens to be the sort thatlikes books and flowers and sewing, she carries some of each with her. And one book, one rose, and one piece of unfinished embroidery wouldmake an oasis in the Sahara Desert look homelike. "

It was on the westbound train that they encountered Sam--Sam of therolling eye, the genial grin, the deft hand. Sam was known to everyhardened traveler as the porter de luxe of the road. Sam was adiplomat, a financier, and a rascal. He never forgot a face. He neverforgave a meager tip. The passengers who traveled with him were atonce his guests and his victims. 

Therefore his, "Good evenin', Mis' McChesney, ma'am. Good even'!Well, it suh't'nly has been a long time sense Ah had the pleasuh of yohpresence as passengah, ma'am. Ah sure am----"

The slim, elegant figure of T. A. Buck appeared in the doorway. Sam'srolling eye became a thing on ball bearings. His teeth flashedstartlingly white in the broadest of grins. He took Buck's hat, ran afinger under its inner band, and shook it very gently. 

"What's the idea?" inquired Buck genially. "Are you a combinationporter and prestidigitator?"

Sam chuckled his infectious negro chuckle. 

"Well, no, sah! Ah wouldn' go's fah as t' say that, sah. But Ah habbeen known to shake rice out of a gen'lman's ordinary, ever'-day, blackderby hat. "

"Get out!" laughed T. A. Buck, as Sam ducked. 

"You may as well get used to it, " smiled Emma, "because I'm known toevery train-conductor, porter, hotel-clerk, chamber-maid, and bell-boybetween here and the Great Lakes. "

It was Sam who proved himself hero of the honeymoon, for he saved T. A. Buck from continuing his journey to Chicago brideless. Fifteen minutesearlier, Buck had gone to the buffet-car for a smoke. At Cleveland, Emma, looking out of the car window, saw a familiar figure pacing upand down the station platform. It was that dapper and important littleIrishman, O'Malley, buyer for Gage & Fosdick, the greatest mail-orderhouse in the world--O'Malley, whose letter T. A. Buck had answered;O'Malley, whose order meant thousands. He was on his way to New York, of course. 

In that moment Mrs. T. A. Buck faded into the background and EmmaMcChesney rose up in her place. She snatched hat and coat and furs, put them on as she went down the long aisle, swung down the car steps, and flew down the platform to the unconscious O'Malley. He wassmoking, all unconscious. The Fates had delivered him into her experthands. She knew those kindly sisters of old, and she was the last torefuse their largesse. 

"Mr. O'Malley!"

He wheeled. 

"Mrs. McChesney!" He had just a charming trace of a brogue. Hisenemies said he assumed it. "Well, who was I thinkin' of but you aminute ago. What----"

"I'm on my way to Chicago. Saw you from the car window. You're on theNew York train? I thought so. Tell me, you're surely seeing our man, aren't you?"

O'Malley's smiling face clouded. He was a temperamental Irishman--TedO'Malley--with ideas on the deference due him and his great house. 

"I'll tell you the truth, Mrs. McChesney. I had a letter from your Mr. Buck. It wasn't much of a letter to a man like me, representing ahouse like Gage & Fosdick. It said both heads of the firm would be outof town, and would I see the manager. Me--see the manager! Well, thinks I, if that's how important they think my order, then they'll notget it--that's all. I've never yet----"

"Dear Mr. O'Malley, please don't be offended. As a McChesney to anO'Malley, I want to tell you that I've just been married. "

"Married! God bless me--to----"

"To T. A. Buck, of course. He's on that train. He----"

She turned toward the train. And as she turned it began to move, everso gently. At the same moment there sped toward her, with unbelievableswiftness, the figure of Sam the porter, his eyes all whites. By onearm he grasped her, and half carried, half jerked her to the steps ofthe moving train, swung her up to the steps like a bundle of rags, caught the rail by a miracle, and stood, grinning and triumphant, gazing down at the panting O'Malley, who was running alongside thetrain. 

"Back in a week. Will you wait for us in New York?" called Emma, herbreath coming fast. She was trembling, too, and laughing. 

"Will I wait!" called back the puffing O'Malley, every bit of the Irishin him beaming from his eyes. "I'll be there when you get back as sureas your name's McBuck. "

From his pocket he took a round, silver Western dollar and, stillrunning, tossed it to the toothy Sam. That peerless porter caught it, twirled it, kissed it, bowed, and grinned afresh as the train glidedout of the shed. 

Emma, flushed, smiling, flew up the aisle. 

Buck, listening to her laughing, triumphant account of her hairbreadth, harum-scarum adventure, frowned before he smiled. 

"Emma, how could you do it! At least, why didn't you send back for mefirst?"

Emma smiled a little tremulously. 

"Don't be angry. You see, dear boy, I've only been your wife for aweek. But I've been Featherloom petticoats for over fifteen years. It's a habit. "

Just how strong and fixed a habit, she proved to herself a little morethan a week later. It was the morning of their first breakfast in thenew apartment. You would have thought, to see them over their coffeeand eggs and rolls, that they had been breakfasting together thus foryears--Annie was so at home in her new kitchen; the deft little maid, in her crisp white, fitted so perfectly into the picture. Perhaps thething that T. A. Buck said, once the maid left them alone, might havegiven an outsider the cue. 

"You remind me of a sweetpea, Emma. One of those crisp, erect, golden-white, fresh, fragrant sweetpeas. I think it is the slenderest, sweetest, neatest, trimmest flower in the world, so delicately set onits stem, and yet so straight, so independent. "

"T. A. , you say such dear things to me!"

No; they had not been breakfasting together for years. 

"I'm glad you're not one of those women that wears a frowsy, lacy, ribbony, what-do-you-call-'em-boudoir-cap--down to breakfast. Theyalways make me think of uncombed hair. That's just one reason why I'mglad. "

"And I'm glad, " said Emma, looking at his clear eyes and steady handand firm skin, "for a number of reasons. One of them is that you'renot the sort of man who's a grouch at breakfast. "

When he had hat and coat and stick in hand, and had kissed her good-byand reached the door and opened it, he came back again, as is the wayof bridegrooms. But at last the door closed behind him. 

Emma sat there a moment, listening to his quick, light step down thecorridor, to the opening of the lift door, to its metallic closing. She sat there, in the sunshiny dining-room, in her fresh, white morninggown. She picked up her newspaper, opened it; scanned it, put it down. For years, now, she had read her newspaper in little gulps on the waydowntown in crowded subway or street-car. She could not accustomherself to this leisurely scanning of the pages. She rose, went to thewindow, came back to the table, stood there a moment, her eyes fixed onsomething far away. 

The swinging door between dining-room and butler's pantry opened. Annie, in her neat blue-and-white stripes, stood before her. 

"Shall it be steak or chops to-night, Mrs. Mc--Buck?"

Emma turned her head in Annie's direction--then her eyes. The twoactions were distinct and separate. 

"Steak or----" There was a little bewildered look in her eyes. 

Her mind had not yet focused on the question. "Steak--oh! Oh, yes, ofcourse! Why--why, Annie"--and the splendid thousand-h. -p. Mind broughtitself down to the settling of this butter-churning, two-h. -p. Question--"why, Annie, considering all things, I think we'll make itfilet with mushrooms. "

IV

BLUE SERGE

For ten years, Mrs. Emma McChesney's home had been a wardrobe-trunk. She had taken her family life at second hand. Four nights out of theseven, her bed was "Lower Eight, " and her breakfast, as many mornings, a cinder-strewn, lukewarm horror, taken tete-a-tete with a sleepy-eyedstranger and presided over by a white-coated, black-faced bandit, towhom a coffee-slopped saucer was a matter of course. 

It had been her habit during those ten years on the road as travelingsaleswoman for the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, to avoidthe discomfort of the rapidly chilling car by slipping early into herberth. There, in kimono, if not in comfort, she would shut down theelectric light with a snap, raise the shade, and, propped up on oneelbow, watch the little towns go by. They had a wonderful fascinationfor her, those Middle Western towns, whose very names had acomfortable, home-like sound--Sandusky, Galesburg, Crawfordsville, Appleton--very real towns, with very real people in them. Peeringwistfully out through the dusk, she could get little intimate glimpsesof the home life of these people as the night came on. In those modestframe houses near the station they need not trouble to pull down theshades as must their cautious city cousins. As the train slowed down, there could be had a glimpse of a matronly housewife moving deftlyabout in the kitchen's warm-yellow glow, a man reading a paper inslippered, shirt-sleeved comfort, a pig-tailed girl at the piano, awoman with a baby in her arms, or a family group, perhaps, seated aboutthe table, deep in an after-supper conclave. It had made her homelessas she was homesick. 

Emma always liked that picture best. Her keen, imaginative mind couldsense the scene, could actually follow the trend of the talk duringthis, the most genial, homely, soul-cheering hour of the day. Thetrifling events of the last twelve hours in schoolroom, in store, inoffice, in street, in kitchen loom up large as they are rehearsed inthat magic, animated, cozy moment just before ma says, with a sigh:

"Well, folks, go on into the sitting-room. Me and Nellie've got toclear away. "

Just silhouettes as the train flashed by--these small-town people--butvery human, very enviable to Emma McChesney. 

"They're real, " she would say. "They're regular, three-meals-a-daypeople. I've been peeking in at their windows for ten years, and I'velearned that it is in these towns that folks really live. Thedifference between life here and life in New York is the differencebetween area and depth. D'you see what I mean? In New York, they liveby the mile, and here they live by the cubic foot. Well, I'd ratherhave one juicy, thick club-steak than a whole platterful ofquarter-inch. It's the same idea. "

To those of her business colleagues whose habit it was to lounge in thehotel window with sneering comment upon the small-town procession as itwent by, Emma McChesney had been wont to say:

"Don't sneer at Main Street. When you come to think of it, isn't ittrue that Fifth Avenue, any bright winter afternoon between four andsix, is only Main Street on a busy day multiplied by one thousand?"

Emma McChesney was not the sort of woman to rail at a fate that hadplaced her in the harness instead of in the carriage. But during allthe long years of up-hill pull, from the time she started with a humblesalary in the office of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, through the years spent on the road, up to the very time when the crownof success came to her in the form of the secretaryship of theprosperous firm of T. A. Buck, there was a minor but fixed ambition inher heart. That same ambition is to be found deep down in the heart ofevery woman whose morning costume is a tailor suit, whose newspapermust be read in hurried snatches on the way downtown in crowded trainor car, and to whom nine A. M. Spells "Business. "

"In fifteen years, " Emma McChesney used to say, "I've never known whatit is to loll in leisure. I've never had a chance to luxuriate. Sunday? To a working woman, Sunday is for the purpose of repairing theravages of the other six days. By the time you've washed your brushes, mended your skirt-braid, darned your stockings and gloves, looked forgray hairs and crows'-feet, and skimmed the magazine section, it'sMonday. "

It was small wonder that Emma McChesney's leisure had been limited. Inthose busy years she had not only earned the living for herself and herboy; she had trained that boy into manhood and placed his foot on thefirst rung of business success. She had transformed the T. A. BuckFeatherloom Petticoat Company from a placidly mediocre concern to athriving, flourishing, nationally known institution. All this mighthave turned another woman's head. It only served to set EmmaMcChesney's more splendidly on her shoulders. Not too splendidly, however; for, with her marriage to her handsome business partner, T. A. Buck, that well-set, independent head was found to fit very cozily intothe comfortable hollow formed by T. A. Buck's right arm. 

"Emma, " Buck had said, just before their marriage, "what is thearrangement to be after--after----"

"Just what it is now, I suppose, " Emma had replied, "except that we'llcome down to the office together. "

He had regarded her thoughtfully for a long minute. Then, "Emma, forthree months after our marriage will you try being just Mrs. T. A. Buck?"

"You mean no factory, no Featherlooms, no dictation, no businessbothers!" Her voice was a rising scale of surprise. 

"Just try it for three months, with the privilege of a lifetime, if youlike it. But try it. I--I'd like to see you there when I leave, Emma. I'd like to have you there when I come home. I suppose I sound like aselfish Turk, but----"

"You sound like a regular husband, " Emma McChesney had interrupted, "and I love you for it. Now listen, T. A. For three whole months I'mgoing to be what the yellow novels used to call a doll-wife. I'm goingto meet you at the door every night with a rose in my hair. I shallwear pink things with lace ruffles on 'em. Don't you know that I'vebeen longing to do just those things for years and years? I'm going toblossom out into a beauty. Watch me! I've never had time to studymyself. I'll hold shades of yellow and green and flesh-color up to myface to see which brings out the right tints. I'm going to gaze atmyself through half-closed eyes to see which shade produces tawnylights in my hair. Ever since I can remember, I've been so busy thatit has been a question of getting the best possible garments in theleast possible time for the smallest possible sum. In that case, onegets blue serge. I've worn blue serge until it feels like a convict'suniform. I'm going to blossom out into fawn and green and mauve. Ishall get evening dresses with only bead shoulder-straps. I'm going toshop. I've never really seen Fifth Avenue between eleven and one, whenthe real people come out. My views of it have been at nine A. M. Whenthe office-workers are going to work, and at five-thirty when they aregoing home. I will now cease to observe the proletariat and minglewith the predatory. I'll probably go in for those tiffin things at thePlaza. If I do, I'll never be the same woman again. "

Whereupon she paused with dramatic effect. 

To all of which T. A. Buck had replied:

"Go as far as you like. Take fencing lessons, if you want to, orSanskrit. You've been a queen bee for so many years that I think therole of drone will be a pleasant change. Let me shoulder the businessworries for a while. You've borne them long enough. "

"It's a bargain. For three months I shall do nothing more militantthan to pick imaginary threads off your coat lapel and pout when youmention business. At the end of those three months we'll go intoprivate session, compare notes, and determine whether the plan shallcease or become permanent. Shake hands on it. "

They shook hands solemnly. As they did so, a faint shadow of doubthovered far, far back in the depths of T. A. Buck's fine eyes. And afaint, inscrutable smile lurked in the corners of Emma's lips. 

So it was that Emma McChesney, the alert, the capable, the brisk, thebusiness-like, assumed the role of Mrs. T. A. Buck, the leisurely, thelanguid, the elegant. She, who formerly, at eleven in the morning, might have been seen bent on selling the best possible bill of springFeatherlooms to Joe Greenbaum, of Keokuk, Iowa, could now be found in amodiste's gray-and-raspberry salon, being draped and pinned and fitted. She, whose dynamic force once charged the entire office and factorywith energy and efficiency, now distributed a tithe of that pricelessvigor here, a tithe there, a tithe everywhere, and thus broke the verybackbone of its power. 

She had never been a woman to do things by halves. What she undertookto do she did thoroughly and whole-heartedly. This principle sheapplied to her new mode of life as rigidly as she had to the old. 

That first month slipped magically by. Emma was too much a woman notto feel a certain exquisite pleasure in the selecting of delicate andbecoming fabrics. There was a thrill of novelty in being able to spendan hour curled up with a book after lunch, to listen to music oneafternoon a week, to drive through the mistily gray park; to walk upthe thronged, sparkling Avenue, pausing before its Aladdin's Cavewindows. Simple enough pleasures, and taken quite as a matter ofcourse by thousands of other women who had no work-filled life behindthem to use as contrast. 

She plunged into her new life whole-heartedly. The first new gown wasexciting. It was a velvet affair with furs, and gratifyingly becoming. Her shining blond head rose above the soft background of velvet and furwith an effect to distract the least observing. 

"Like it?" she had asked Buck, turning slowly, frankly sure of herself. 

"You're wonderful in it, " said T. A. Buck. "Say, Emma, where's thatblue thing you used to wear--the one with the white cuffs and collar, and the little blue hat with the what-cha-ma-call-ems on it?"

"T. A. Buck, you're--you're--well, you're a man, that's what you are!That blue thing was worn threadbare in the office, and I gave it to thelaundress's niece weeks ago. " Small wonder her cheeks took on a deeperpink. 

"Oh, " said Buck, unruffled, "too bad! There was something about thatdress--I don't know----"

At the first sitting of the second gown, Emma revolted openly. 

On the floor at Emma's feet there was knotted into a contortionisticattitude a small, wiry, impolite person named Smalley. Miss Smalleywas an artist in draping and knew it. She was the least fashionableperson in all that smart dressmaking establishment. She refused tonotice the corset-coiffure-and-charmeuse edict that governed all otheremployees in the shop. In her shabby little dress, her steel-rimmedspectacles, her black-sateen apron, Smalley might have passed for aBird Center home dressmaker. Yet, given a yard or two or three ofsatin and a saucer of pins, Smalley could make the dumpiest ofdebutantes look like a fragile flower. 

At a critical moment Emma stirred. Handicapped as she was by amouthful of nineteen pins and her bow-knot attitude, Smalley stillcould voice a protest. 

"Don't move!" she commanded, thickly. 

"Wait a minute, " Emma said, and moved again, more disastrously thanbefore. "Don't you think it's too--too young?"

She eyed herself in the mirror anxiously, then looked down at MissSmalley's nut-cracker face that was peering up at her, its lips pursedgrotesquely over the pins. 

"Of course it is, " mumbled Miss Smalley. "Everybody's clothes are tooyoung for 'em nowadays. The only difference between the dresses wemake for girls of sixteen and the dresses we make for theirgrandmothers of sixty is that the sixty-year-old ones want 'em shorterand lower, and they run more to rose-bud trimming. "

Emma surveyed the acid Miss Smalley with a look that was half amused, half vexed, wholly determined. 

"I shan't wear it. Heaven knows I'm not sixty, but I'm not sixteeneither! I don't want to be. "

Miss Smalley, doubling again to her task, flung upward a grudgingcompliment. 

"Well, anyway, you've got the hair and the coloring and the figure forit. Goodness knows you look young enough!"

"That's because I've worked hard all my life, " retorted Emma, almostviciously. "Another month of this leisure and I'll be as wrinkled asthe rest of them. "

Smalley's magic fingers paused in their manipulation of a soft fold ofsatin. 

"Worked? Earned a living? Used your wits and brains every day againstthe wits and brains of other folks?"

"Every day. "

Into the eyes of Miss Smalley, the artist in draping, there crept theshrewd twinkle of Miss Smalley, the successful woman in business. Shehad been sitting back on her knees, surveying her handiwork throughnarrowed lids. Now she turned her gaze on Emma, who was smiling downat her. 

"Then for goodness' sake don't stop! I've found out that work is akind of self-oiler. If you're used to it, the minute you stop youbegin to get rusty, and your hinges creak and you clog up. And thenext thing you know, you break down. Work that you like to do is ablessing. It keeps you young. When my mother was my age, she wascrippled with rheumatism, and all gnarled up, and quavery, and all shehad to look forward to was death. Now me--every time the styles inskirts change I get a new hold on life. And on a day when I can make ashort, fat woman look like a tall, thin woman, just by sitting here onmy knees with a handful of pins, and giving her the line she needs, Igo home feeling like I'd just been born. "

"I know that feeling, " said Emma, in her eyes a sparkle that had longbeen absent. "I've had it when I've landed a thousand-dollarFeatherloom order from a man who has assured me that he isn'tinterested in our line. "

At dinner that evening, Emma's gown was so obviously not of the newcrop that even her husband's inexpert eye noted it. 

"That's not one of the new ones, is it?"

"This! And you a manufacturer of skirts!"

"What's the matter with the supply of new dresses? Isn't there enoughto go round?"

"Enough! I've never had so many new gowns in my life. The trouble isthat I shan't feel at home in them until I've had 'em all dry-cleanedat least once. "

During the second month, there came a sudden, sharp change in skirtmodes. For four years women had been mincing along in garments soabsurdly narrow that each step was a thing to be considered, eachcurbing or car-step demanding careful negotiation. Now, Fashion, inher freakiest mood, commanded a bewildering width of skirt that wasjust one remove from the flaring hoops of Civil War days. Emma knewwhat that meant for the Featherloom workrooms and selling staff. Newdesigns, new models, a shift in prices, a boom for petticoats, for fouryears a garment despised. 

A hundred questions were on the tip of Emma's tongue; a hundredsuggestions flashed into her keen mind; there occurred to her awonderful design for a new model which should be full and flaringwithout being bulky and uncomfortable as were the wide petticoats ofthe old days. 

But a bargain was a bargain. Still, Emma Buck was as human as EmmaMcChesney had been. She could not resist a timid, "T. A. , are you--that is--I was just wondering--you're making 'em wide, I suppose, for the spring trade. "

A queer look flashed into T. A. Buck's eyes--a relieved look that wasas quickly replaced by an expression both baffled and anxious. 

"Why--a--mmmm--yes--oh, yes, we're making 'em up wide, but----"

"But what?" Emma leaned forward, tense. 

"Oh, nothing--nothing. "

During the second month there came calling on Emma, those solid andheavy New Yorkers, with whom the Buck family had been on friendly termsfor many years. They came at the correct hour, in their correct motoror conservative broughams, wearing their quietly correct clothes, andEmma gave them tea, and they talked on every subject from suffrage tosalad dressings, and from war to weather, but never once was mentionmade of business. And Emma McChesney's life had been interwoven withbusiness for more than fifteen years. 

There were dinners--long, heavy, correct dinners. Emma, very welldressed, bright-eyed, alert, intelligent, vital, became very popular atthese affairs, and her husband very proud of her popularity. And ifany one as thoroughly alive as Mrs. T. A. Buck could have been bored toextinction by anything, then those dinners would have accomplished thedeadly work. 

"T. A. , " she said one evening, after a particularly large affair ofthis sort, "T. A. , have you ever noticed anything about me that isdifferent from other women?"

"Have I? Well, I should say I----"

"Oh, I don't mean what you mean, dear--thanks just the same. I meanthose women tonight. They all seem to 'go in' for something--votes orcharity or dancing or social service, or something--even the girls. And they all sounded so amateurish, so untrained, so unprepared, yetthey seemed to be dreadfully in earnest. "

"This is the difference, " said T. A. Buck. "You've rubbed up againstlife, and you know. They've always been sheltered, but now they wantto know. Well, naturally they're going to bungle and bump their headsa good many times before they really find out. "

"Anyway, " retorted Emma, "they want to know. That's something. It'sbetter to have bumped your head, even though you never see what's onthe other side of the wall, than never to have tried to climb it. "

It was in the third week of the third month that Emma encounteredHortense. Hortense, before her marriage to Henry, the shipping-clerk, had been a very pretty, very pert, very devoted little stenographer inthe office of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. She hadmarried just a month after her employers, and Emma, from the fulness ofher own brimming cup of happiness, had made Hortense happy with a giftof linens and lingerie and lace of a fineness that Hortense'sbeauty-loving, feminine heart could never have hoped for. 

They met in the busy aisle of a downtown department store and shookhands as do those who have a common bond. 

Hortense, as pretty as ever and as pert, spoke first. 

"I wouldn't have known you, Mrs. Mc-- Buck!"

"No? Why not?"

"You look--no one would think you'd ever worked in your life. I wasdown at the office the other day for a minute--the first time since Iwas married. They told me you weren't there any more. "

"No; I haven't been down since my marriage either. I'm like you--anelegant lady of leisure. "

Hortense's bright-blue eyes dwelt searchingly on the face of her formeremployer. 

"The bunch in the office said they missed you something awful. " Then, in haste: "Oh, I don't mean that Mr. Buck don't make things go allright. They're awful fond of him. But--I don't know--Miss Kelly saidshe never has got over waiting for the sound of your step down the hallat nine--sort of light and quick and sharp and busy, as if you couldn'twait till you waded into the day's work. Do you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean, " said Emma. 

There was a little pause. The two women so far apart, yet so near; sodifferent, yet so like, gazed far down into each other's soul. 

"Miss it, don't you?" said Hortense. 

"Yes; don't you?"

"Do I! Say----" She turned and indicated the women surging up anddown the store aisles, and her glance and gesture were replete withcontempt. "Say; look at 'em! Wandering around here, aimless as a lotof chickens in a barnyard. Half of 'em are here because they haven'tgot anything else to do. Think of it! I've watched 'em lots of times. They go pawing over silks and laces and trimmings just for the pleasureof feeling 'em. They stand in front of a glass case with a figure in itall dressed up in satin and furs and jewels, and you'd think they wereworshiping an idol like they used to in the olden days. They don't seemto have anything to do. Nothing to occupy their--their heads. Say, ifI thought I was going to be like them in time, I----"

"Hortense, my dear child, you're--you're happy, aren't you? Henry----"

"Well, I should say we are! I'm crazy about Henry, and he thinks I'mperfect. Honestly, ain't they a scream! They think they're so big andmanly and all, and they're just like kids; ain't it so? We're livingin a four-room apartment in Harlem. We've got it fixed up too cozy foranything. "

"I'd like to come and see you, " said Emma. Hortense opened her eyeswide. 

"Honestly; if you would----"

"Let's go up now. I've the car outside. "

"Now! Why I--I'd love it!"

They chattered like schoolgirls on the way uptown--these two who hadfound so much in common. The little apartment reached, Hortense threwopen the door with the confident gesture of the housekeeper who is notafraid to have her household taken by surprise--whose housekeeping isan index of character. 

Hortense had been a clean-cut little stenographer. Her correspondencehad always been free from erasures, thumb-marks, errors. Her four-roomflat was as spotless as her typewritten letters had been. The kitchenshone in its blue and white and nickel. A canary chirped in the tinydining-room. There were books and magazines on the sitting-room table. The bedroom was brave in its snowy spread and the toilet silver thathad been Henry's gift to her the Christmas they became engaged. 

Emma examined everything, exclaimed over everything, admiredeverything. Hortense glowed like a rose. 

"Do you really like it? I like the green velours in the sitting-room, don't you? It's always so kind and cheerful. We're not all settledyet. I don't suppose we ever will be. Sundays, Henry putters around, putting up shelves, and fooling around with a can of paint. I alwaystell him he ought to have lived on a farm, where he'd have elbow-room. "

"No wonder you're so happy and busy, " Emma exclaimed, and patted thegirl's fresh, young cheek. 

Hortense was silent a moment. 

"I'm happy, " she said, at last, "but I ain't busy. And--well, ifyou're not busy, you can't be happy very long, can you?"

"No, " said Emma, "idleness, when you're not used to it, is misery. "

"There! You've said it! It's like running on half-time when you'reused to a day-and-night shift. Something's lacking. It isn't thatHenry isn't grand to me, because he is. Evenings, we're so happy thatwe just sit and grin at each other and half the time we forget to go toa 'movie. ' After Henry leaves in the morning, I get to work. Isuppose, in the old days, when women used to have to chop the kindling, and catch the water for washing in a rain-barrel, and keep up a fire inthe kitchen stove and do their own bread baking and all, it used tokeep 'em hustling. But, my goodness! A four-room flat for two isn'tany work. By eleven, I'm through. I've straightened everything, fromthe bed to the refrigerator; the marketing's done, and the dinnervegetables are sitting around in cold water. The mending for two is ajoke. Henry says it's a wonder I don't sew double-breasted buttons onhis undershirts. "

Emma was not smiling. But, then, neither was Hortense. She wastalking lightly, seemingly, but her pretty face was quite serious. 

"The big noise in my day is when Henry comes home at six. That was allright and natural, I suppose, in those times when a quilting-bee was awild afternoon's work, and teaching school was the most advanced job awoman could hold down. "

Emma was gazing fascinated at the girl's sparkling face. Her own eyeswere very bright, and her lips were parted. 

"Tell me, Hortense, " she said now; "what does Henry say to all this?Have you told him how you feel?"

"Well, I--I talked to him about it once or twice. I told him that I'vegot about twenty-four solid hours a week that I might be getting fiftycents an hour for. You know, I worked for a manuscript-typewritingconcern before I came over to Buck's--plays and stories and that kindof thing. They used to like my work because I never queered theirspeeches by leaving out punctuation or mixing up the characters. Themanager there said I could have work any time I wanted it. I've got myown typewriter. I got it second hand when I first started in. Henrypicks around on it sometimes, evenings. I hardly ever touch it. It'sgetting rusty--and so am I. "

"It isn't just the money you want, Hortense? Are you sure?"

"Of course I'd like the money. That extra coming in would meanbooks--I'm crazy about reading, and so is Henry--and theaters and lotsof things we can't afford now. But that isn't all. Henry don't wantto be a shipping-clerk all his life. He's crazy about mechanics andthat kind of stuff. But the books that he needs cost a lot. Don't yousuppose I'd be proud to feel that the extra money I'd earned would lifthim up where he could have a chance to be something! But Henry is deadset against it. He says he is the one that's going to earn the moneyaround here. I try to tell him that I'm used to using my mind. Helaughs and pinches my cheek and tells me to use it thinking about him. "She stopped suddenly and regarded Emma with conscience-stricken eyes. "You don't think I'm running down Henry, do you? My goodness, I don'twant you to think that I'd change back again for a million dollars, because I wouldn't. " She looked up at Emma, conscience-stricken. 

Emma came swiftly over and put one hand on the girl's shoulder. 

"I don't think it. Not for a minute. I know that the world is full ofHenrys, and that the number of Hortenses is growing larger and larger. I don't know if the four-room flats are to blame, or whether it's justa natural development. But the Henry-Hortense situation seems to bespreading to the nine-room-and-three-baths apartments, too. "

Hortense nodded a knowing head. 

"I kind of thought so, from the way you were listening. "

The two, standing there gazing at each other almost shyly, suddenlybegan to laugh. The laugh was a safety-valve. Then, quite assuddenly, both became serious. That seriousness had been theunder-current throughout. 

"I wonder, " said Emma very gently, "if a small Henry, some day, won'tprovide you with an outlet for all that stored-up energy. "

Hortense looked up very bravely. 

"Maybe. You--you must have been about my age when your boy was born. Did he make you feel--different?"

The shade of sadness that always came at the mention of those unhappyyears of her early marriage crept into Emma's face now. 

"That was not the same, dear, " she explained. "I hadn't your sort ofHenry. You see, my boy was my only excuse for living. You'll neverknow what that means. And when things grew altogether impossible, andI knew that I must earn a living for Jock and myself, I just didit--that's all. I had to. "

Hortense thought that over for one deliberate moment. Her brows weredrawn in a frown. 

"I'll tell you what I think, " she announced, at last, "though I don'tknow that I can just exactly put it into words. I mean this: Somepeople are just bound to--to give, to build up things, to--well, tomanufacture, because they just can't help it. It's in 'em, and it'sgot to come out. Dynamos--that's what Henry's technical books wouldcall them. You're one--a great big one. I'm one. Just a little tinyone. But it's sparking away there all the time, and it might as wellbe put to some use, mightn't it?"

Emma bent down and kissed the troubled forehead, and then, verytenderly, the pretty, puckered lips. 

"Little Hortense, " she said, "you're asking a great big question. Ican answer it for myself, but I can't answer it for you. It's toodangerous. I wouldn't if I could. "

Emma, waiting in the hall for the lift, looked back at the slim littlefigure in the doorway. There was a droop to the shoulders. Emma'sheart smote her. 

"Don't bother your head about all this, little girl, " she called backto her. "Just forget to be ambitious and remember to be happy. That'smuch the better way. "

Hortense, from the doorway, grinned a rather wicked little grin. 

"When are you going back to the office, Mrs. Buck?" she asked, quietlyenough. 

"What makes you think I'm going back at all?" demanded Emma, steppinginto the shaky little elevator. 

"I don't think it, " retorted Hortense, once more the pert. "I know it. "

Emma knew it, too. She had known it from the moment that she shookhands in her compact. There was still one week remaining of thestipulated three months. It seemed to Emma that that one week waslonger than the combined eleven. But she went through with colorsflying. Whatever Emma McChesney Buck did, she did well. But, then, T. A. Buck had done his part well, too--so well that, on the final day, Emma felt a sinking at her heart. He seemed so satisfied with affairsas they were. He was, apparently, so content to drop all thought ofbusiness when he left the office for his home. 

Emma had planned a very special little dinner that evening. She wore avery special gown, too--one of the new ones. T. A. Noticed it at once, and the dinner as well, being that kind of husband. Still, Annie, thecook, complained later, to the parlor-maid, about the thanklessness ofcooking dinners for folks who didn't eat more'n a mouthful, anyway. 

Dinner over, "Well, Emma?" said T. A. Buck. 

"Light your cigar, T. A. , " said Emma. "You'll need it. "

T. A. Lighted it with admirable leisureliness, sent out a great puff offragrant smoke, and surveyed his wife through half-closed lids. Beneath his air of ease there was a tension. 

"Well, Emma?" he said again, gently. 

Emma looked at him a moment appreciatively. She had too much poise andbalance and control herself not to recognize and admire those qualitiesin others. 

"T. A. , if I had been what they call a homebody, we wouldn't be marriedto-day, would we?"

"No. "

"You knew plenty of home-women that you could have married, didn't you?"

"I didn't ask them, Emma, but----"

"You know what I mean. Now listen, T. A. : I've loafed for threemonths. I've lolled and lazied and languished. And I've never been sotired in my life--not even when we were taking January inventory. Another month of this, and I'd be an old, old woman. I understand, now, what it is that brings that hard, tired, stony look into the facesof the idle women. They have to work so hard to try to keep happy. Isuppose if I had been a homebody all my life, I might be hardened tothis kind of thing. But it's too late now. And I'm thankful for it. Those women who want to shop and dress and drive and play are welcometo my share of it. If I am to be punished in the next world for mywickedness in this, I know what form my torture will take. I shallhave to go from shop to shop with a piece of lace in my hand, matchinga sample of insertion. Fifteen years of being in the thick of it spoilone for tatting and tea. The world is full of homebodies, I suppose. And they're happy. I suppose I might have been one, too, if I hadn'tbeen obliged to get out and hustle. But it's too late to learn now. Besides, I don't want to. If I do try, I'll be destroying the verything that attracted you to me in the first place. Remember what yousaid about the Fifth Avenue girl?"

"But, Emma, " interrupted Buck very quietly, "I don't want you to try. "

Emma, with a rush of words at her very lips, paused, eyed him for adoubtful moment, asked a faltering question. 

"But it was your plan--you said you wanted me to be here when you camehome and when you left, didn't you? Do you mean you----"

"I mean that I've missed my business partner every minute for threemonths. All the time we've been going to those fool dinners and allthat kind of thing, I've been bursting to talk skirts to you. I--say, Emma, Adler's designed a new model--a full one, of course, but there'ssomething wrong with it. I can't put my finger on the flaw, but----"

Emma came swiftly over to his chair. 

"Make a sketch of it, can't you?" she said. From his pocket Buck drewa pencil, an envelope, and fell to sketching rapidly, squinting downthrough his cigar smoke as he worked. 

"It's like this, " he began, absorbed and happy; "you see, where thefulness begins at the knee----"

"Yes!" prompted Emma, breathlessly. 

Two hours later they were still bent over the much marked bit of paper. But their interest in it was not that of those who would solve aperplexing problem. It was the lingering, satisfied contemplation of atask accomplished. 

Emma straightened, leaned back, sighed--a victorious, happy sigh. 

"And to think, " she said, marveling, "to think that I once envied thewomen who had nothing to do but the things I've done in the last threemonths!"

Buck had risen, stretched luxuriously, yawned. Now he came over to hiswife and took her head in his two hands, cozily, and stood a momentlooking into her shining eyes. 

"Emma, I may have mentioned this once or twice before, but perhapsyou'll still be interested to know that I think you're a wonder. Awonder! You're the----"

"Oh, well, we won't quarrel about that, " smiled Emma brazenly. "But Iwonder if Adler will agree with us when he sees what we've done to hisnewest skirt design. "

Suddenly a new thought seemed to strike her. She was off down thehall. Buck, following in a leisurely manner, hands in pockets, stoodin the bedroom door and watched her plunge into the innermost depths ofthe clothes-closet. 

"What's the idea, Emma?"

"Looking for something, " came back his wife's muffled tones. 

A long wait. 

"Can I help?"

"I've got it!" cried Emma, and emerged triumphant, flushed, smiling, holding a garment at arm's length, aloft. 

"What----"

Emma shook it smartly, turned it this way and that, held it up underher chin by the sleeves. 

"Why, girl!" exclaimed Buck, all a-grin, "it's the----"

"The blue serge, " Emma finished for him, "with the white collars andcuffs. And what's more, young man, it's the little blue hat with thewhat-cha-ma-call-ems on it. And praise be! I'm wearing 'em bothdown-town to-morrow morning. "

V

"HOOPS, MY DEAR!"

Emma McChesney Buck always vigorously disclaimed any knowledge of thatdreamy-eyed damsel known as Inspiration. T. A. Buck, herhusband-partner, accused her of being on intimate terms with the lady. So did the adoring office staff of the T. A. Buck Featherloom PetticoatCompany. Out in the workshop itself, the designers and cutters, thosejealous artists of the pencil, shears, and yardstick, looked on in awedadmiration on those rare occasions when the feminine member of thebusiness took the scissors in her firm white hands and slashed boldlyinto a shimmering length of petticoat-silk. When she put down thegreat shears, there lay on the table the detached parts of that whichthe appreciative and experienced eyes of the craftsmen knew to be a newand original variation of that elastic garment known as the underskirt. 

For weeks preceding one of these cutting-exhibitions, Emma was likelyto be not quite her usual brisk self. A mystic glow replaced the alertbrightness of her eye. Her wide-awake manner gave way to one of almostsluggish inactivity. 

The outer office, noting these things, would lift its eyebrowssignificantly. 

"Another hunch!" it would whisper. "The last time she beat the rest ofthe trade by six weeks with that elastic-top gusset. "

"Inspiration working, Emma?" T. A. Buck would ask, noting the symptoms. 

"It isn't inspiration, T. A. Nothing of the kind! It's just an attackof imagination, complicated by clothes-instinct. "

"That's all that ails Poiret, " Buck would retort. 

Early in the autumn, when women were still walking with an absurdsidewise gait, like a duck, or a filly that is too tightly hobbled, thejunior partner of the firm began to show unmistakable signs of businessaberration. A blight seemed to have fallen upon her bright littleoffice, usually humming with activity. The machinery of her day, ordinarily as noiseless and well ordered as a thing on ball bearings, now rasped, creaked, jerked, stood still, jolted on again. A bustlingclerk or stenographer, entering with paper or memorandum, would findher bent over her desk, pencil in hand, absorbed in a rough drawingthat seemed to bear no relation to the skirt of the day. The margin ofher morning paper was filled with queer little scrawls by the time shereached the office. She drew weird lines with her fork on thetable-cloth at lunch. These hieroglyphics she covered with a quickhand, like a bashful schoolgirl, when any one peeped. 

"Tell a fellow what it's going to be, can't you?" pleaded Buck. 

"I got one glimpse yesterday, when you didn't know I was looking overyour shoulder. It seemed a pass between an overgrown Zeppelin and anapple dumpling. So I know it can't be a skirt. Come on, Emma; tellyour old man!"

"Not yet, " Emma would reply dreamily. 

Buck would strike an attitude intended to intimidate. 

"If you have no sense of what is due me as your husband, then I demand, as senior partner of this firm, to know what it is that is taking yourtime, which rightfully belongs to this business. "

"Go away, T. A. , and stop pestering me! What do you think I'mdesigning--a doily?"

Buck, turning to go to his own office, threw a last retort over hisshoulder--a rather sobering one, this time. 

"Whatever it is, it had better be good--with business what it is andskirts what they are. "

Emma lifted her head to reply to that. 

"It isn't what they are that interests me. It's what they're going tobe. "

Buck paused in the doorway. 

"Going to be! Anybody can see that. Underneath that full, fool, flaring over-drape, the real skirt is as tight as ever. I don't thinkthe spring models will show an inch of real difference. I tell you, Emma, it's serious. "

Emma, apparently absorbed in her work, did not reply to this. But avague something about the back of her head told T. A. Buck that she waslaughing at him. The knowledge only gave him new confidence in thisresourceful, many-sided, lovable, level-headed partner-wife of his. 

Two weeks went by--four--six--eight. Emma began to look a little thin. Her bright color was there only when she was overtired or excited. Theworkrooms began to talk of new designs for spring, though it wasscarcely mid-winter. The head designer came forward timidly with askirt that measured a yard around the bottom. Emma looked at it, triedto keep her lower lip prisoner between her teeth, failed, and began tolaugh helplessly, almost hysterically. 

Amazement in the faces of Buck and Koritz, the designer, becameconsternation, then, in the designer, resentment. 

Koritz, dark, undersized, with the eyes of an Oriental and the lean, sensitive fingers of one who creates, shivered a little, like a plantthat is swept by an icy blast. Buck came over and laid one hand on hiswife's shaking shoulder. 

"Emma, you're overtired! This--this thing you've been slaving over hasbeen too much for you. "

With one hand, Emma reached up and patted the fingers that restedprotectingly on her shoulder. With the other, she wiped her eyes, then, all contrition, grasped the slender brown hand of the offendedKoritz. 

"Bennie, please forgive me! I--I didn't mean to laugh. I wasn'tlaughing at your new skirt. "

"You think it's too wide, maybe, huh?" Bennie Koritz said, and held itup doubtfully. 

"Too wide!" For a moment Emma seemed threatened with another attack ofthat inexplicable laughter. She choked it back resolutely. 

"No, Bennie; not too wide. I'll tell you to-morrow why I laughed. Then, perhaps, you'll laugh with me. "

Bennie, draping his despised skirt-model over one arm, had the courageto smile even now, though grimly. 

"I laugh--sure, " he said, showing his white teeth now. "But the laughwill be, I bet you, on me--like it was when you designed thatknickerbocker before the trade knew such a thing could be. "

Impulsively Emma grasped his hand and shook it, as though she found acertain needed encouragement in the loyalty of this sallow littleRussian. 

"Bennie, you're a true artist--because you're big enough to praise thework of a fellow craftsman when you recognize its value. " And Koritz, the dull red showing under the olive of his cheeks, went back to hiscutting-table happy. 

Buck bent forward, eagerly. 

"You're going to tell me now, Emma? It's finished?"

"To-night--at home. I want to be the first to try it on. I'll playmodel. A private exhibition, just for you. It's not only finished; itis patented. "

"Patented! But why? What is it, anyway? A new fastener? I thoughtit was a skirt. "

"Wait until you see it. You'll think I should have had it copyrightedas well, not to say passed by the national board of censors. "

"Do you mean to say that I'm to be the entire audience at the premiereof this new model?"

"You are to be audience, critic, orchestra, box-holder, patron, and'Diamond Jim' Brady. Now run along into your own office--won't you, dear? I want to get out these letters. " And she pressed the buttonthat summoned a stenographer. 

T. A. Buck, resigned, admiring, and anticipatory, went. 

Annie, the cook, was justified that evening in her bitter complaint. Her excellent dinner received scant enough attention from these two. They hurried through it like eager, bright-eyed school-children whohave been promised a treat. Two scarlet spots glowed in Emma's cheeks. Buck's eyes, through the haze of his after-dinner cigar, were luminous. 

"Now?"

"No; not yet. I want you to smoke your cigar and digest your dinnerand read your paper. I want you to twiddle your thumbs a little andlook at your watch. First-night curtains are always late in rising, aren't they? Well!"

She turned on the full glare of the chandelier, turned it off, wentabout flicking on the soft-shaded wall lights and the lamps. 

"Turn your chair so that your back will be toward the door. "

He turned it obediently. 

Emma vanished. 

From the direction of her bedroom there presently came the sounds ofdresser drawers hurriedly opened and shut with a bang, of a slipperdropped on the hard-wood floor, a tune hummed in an absent-mindedabsorption under the breath, an excited little laugh nervously stifled. Buck, in his role of audience, began to clap impatiently and to stampwith his feet on the floor. 

"No gallery!" Emma called in from the hall. "Remember thetemperamental family on the floor below!" A silence--then: "I'mcoming. Shut your eyes and prepare to be jarred by the Buckballoon-petticoat!"

There was a rustling of silks, a little rush to the center of the bigroom, a breathless pause, a sharp snap of finger and thumb. Buck openedhis eyes. 

He opened his eyes. Then he closed them and opened them again, quickly, as we do, sometimes, when we are unwilling to believe thatwhich we see. What he beheld was this: A very pretty, very flushed, very bright-eyed woman, her blond hair dressed quaintly after thefashion of the early 'Sixties, her arms and shoulders bare, a pink-slipwith shoulder-straps in lieu of a bodice, and--he passed a bewilderedhand over his eyes a skirt that billowed and flared and flounced andspread in a great, graceful circle--a skirt strangely light for all itsfulness--a skirt like, and yet, somehow, unlike those garments seen inancient copies of Godey's Lady Book. 

"That can't be--you don't mean--what--what IS it?" stammered Buck, dismayed. 

Emma, her arms curved above her head like a ballet-dancer's, pirouetted, curtsied very low so that the skirt spread all about her onthe floor, like the petals of a flower. 

"Hoops, my dear!"

"Hoops!" echoed Buck, in weak protest. "Hoops, my DEAR!"

Emma stroked one silken fold with approving fingers. 

"Our new leader for spring. "

"But, Emma, you're joking!"

She stared, suddenly serious. 

"You mean--you don't like it!"

"Like it! For a fancy-dress costume, yes; but as a petticoat forevery-day wear, to be made up by us for our customers! But of courseyou're playing a trick on me. " He laughed a little weakly and cametoward her. "You can't catch me that way, old girl! It's darnedbecoming, Emma--I'll say that. " He bent down, smiling. "I'll allowyou to kiss me. And then try me with the real surprise, will you?"

Her coquetry vanished. Her smile fled with it. Her pretty pose wasabandoned. Mrs. T. A. Buck, wife, gave way to Emma McChesney Buck, business woman. She stiffened a little, as though bracing herself fora verbal encounter. 

"You'll get used to it. I expected you to be jolted at the first shockof it. I was, myself--when the idea came to me. "

Buck passed a frenzied forefinger under his collar, as though it hadsuddenly grown too tight for him. 

"Used to it! I don't want to get used to it! It's preposterous! Youcan't be serious! No woman would wear a garment like that! For fiveyears skirts have been tighter and tighter----"

"Until this summer they became tightest, " interrupted Emma. "They couldgo no farther. I knew that meant, 'About face!' I knew it meant not aslightly wider skirt but a wildly wider skirt. A skirt as bouffant asthe other had been scant. I was sure it wouldn't be a gradual processat all but a mushroom growth--hobbles to-day, hoops to-morrow. Studythe history of women's clothes, and you'll find that has always beentrue. "

"Look here, Emma, " began Buck, desperately; "you're wrong, all wrong!Here, let me throw this scarf over your shoulders. Now we'll sit downand talk this thing over sensibly. "

"I'll agree to the scarf"--she drew a soft, silken, fringed shawl abouther and immediately one thought of a certain vivid, brilliant portraitof a hoop-skirted dancer--"but don't ask me to sit down. I'd reboundlike a toy balloon. I've got to convince you of this thing. I'll haveto do it standing. "

Buck sank into his chair and dabbed at his forehead with hishandkerchief. 

"You'll never convince me, sitting or standing. Emma, I know I foughtthe knickerbocker when you originated it, and I know that it turned outto be a magnificent success. But this is different. The knicker waspractical; this thing's absurd--it's impossible! This is an age ofactivity. In Civil War days women minced daintily along when theywalked at all. They stitched on samplers by way of diversion. "

"What has all that to do with it?" inquired Emma sweetly. 

"Everything. Use a little logic. "

"Logic! In a discussion about women's dress! T. A. , I'm surprised. "

"But, Emma, be reasonable. Good Lord! You're usually clear-sightedenough. Our mode of living has changed in the last fifty years--ourmethods of transit, our pastimes, customs, everything. Imagine a womantrying to climb a Fifth Avenue 'bus in one of those things. Fancy herin a hot set of tennis. Women use street-cars, automobiles, airships. Can you see a subway train full of hoop-skirted clerks, stenographers, and models? Street-car steps aren't built for it. Office-buildingelevators can't stand for it. Six-room apartments won't accommodate'em. They're fantastic, wild, improbable. You're wrong, Emma--allwrong!"

She had listened patiently enough, never once attempting to interrupt. But on her lips was the maddening half-smile of one whose rebuttal isready. Now she perched for a moment at the extreme edge of the arm ofa chair. Her skirt subsided decorously. Buck noticed that, withsurprise, even in the midst of his heated protest. 

"T. A. , you've probably forgotten, but those are the very argumentsused when the hobble was introduced. Preposterous, peoplesaid--impossible! Women couldn't walk in 'em. Wouldn't, couldn't sitdown in 'em. Women couldn't run, play tennis, skate in them. The carsteps were too high for them. Well, what happened? Women had to walkin them, and a new gait became the fashion. Women took lessons in howto sit down in them. They slashed them for tennis and skating. Andstreet-car companies all over the country lowered the car steps toaccommodate them. What's true for the hobble holds good for the hoop. Women will cease to single-foot and learn to undulate when they walk. They'll widen the car platforms. They'll sit on top the Fifth Avenue'buses, and you'll never give them a second thought. "

"The things don't stay where they belong. I've seen 'em misbehave inmusical comedies, " argued Buck miserably. 

"That's where my patent comes in. The old hoop was cumbersome, unwieldy, clumsy. The new skirt, by my patent featherboning process, is made light, graceful, easily managed. T. A. , I predict that bymidsummer a tight skirt will be as rare a sight as a full one was ayear ago. "

"Nonsense!"

"We're not quarreling, are we?"

"Quarreling! I rather think not! A man can have his own opinion, can't he?"

It appeared, however, that he could not. For when they had threshed itout, inch by inch, as might two partners whose only bond was business, it was Emma who won. 

"Remember, I'm not convinced, " Buck warned her; "I'm only beaten bysuperior force. But I do believe in your woman's intuition--I'll saythat. It has never gone wrong. I'm banking on it. 

"It's woman's intuition when we win, " Emma observed, thoughtfully. "When we lose it's a foolish, feminine notion. "

There were to be no half-way measures. The skirt was to be the featureof the spring line. Cutters and designers were one with Buck inthinking it a freak garment. Emma reminded them that the same thinghad been said of the hobble on its appearance. 

In February, Billy Spalding, veteran skirt-salesman, led a flying wedgeof six on a test-trip that included the Middle West and the Coast. Their sample-trunks had to be rebuilt to accommodate the new model. Spalding, shirt-sleeved, whistling dolorously, eyed each garment with alook of bristling antagonism. Spalding sold skirts on commission. 

Emma, surveying his labors, lifted a quizzical eyebrow. 

"If you're going to sell that skirt as enthusiastically as you pack it, you'd better stay here in New York and save the house travelingexpenses. "

Spalding ceased to whistle. He held up a billowy sample and gazed atit. 

"Honestly, Mrs. Buck, you know I'd try to sell pretzels in London ifyou asked me to. But do you really think any woman alive would becaught wearing a garment like this in these days?"

"Not only do I think it, Billy; I'm certain of it. This new petticoatmakes me the Lincoln of the skirt trade. I'm literally freeing mysisters from the shackles that have bound their ankles for five years. "

Spalding, unimpressed, folded another skirt. 

"Um, maybe! But what's that line about slaves hugging their chains?"

The day following, Spalding and his flying squad scattered to spreadthe light among the skirt trade. And things went wrong from the start. 

The first week showed an ominous lack of those cheering epistlesbeginning, "Enclosed please find, " etc. The second was worse. Thethird was equally bad. The fourth was final. The second week inMarch, Spalding returned from a territory which had always been knownas firmly wedded to the T. A. Buck Featherloom petticoat. The MiddleWest would have none of him. 

They held the post-mortem in Emma's bright little office, and that ladyherself seemed to be strangely sunny and undaunted, considering thecompleteness of her defeat. She sat at her desk now, very interested, very bright-eyed, very calm. Buck, in a chair at the side of her desk, was interested, too, but not so calm. Spalding, who was accustomed totalk while standing, leaned against the desk, feet crossed, browsfurrowed. As he talked, he emphasized his remarks by jabbing the airwith his pencil. 

"Well, " said Emma quietly, "it didn't go. "

"It didn't even start, " corrected Spalding. 

"But why?" demanded Buck. "Why?"

Spalding leaned forward a little, eagerly. 

"I'll tell you something: When I started out with that little garment, I thought it was a joke. Before I'd been out with it a week, I beganto like it. In ten days, I was crazy about it, and I believed in itfrom the waistband to the hem. On the level, Mrs. Buck, I think it's awonder. Now, can you explain that?"

"Yes, " said Emma; "you didn't like it at first because it was a shockto you. It outraged all your ideas of what a skirt ought to be. Thenyou grew accustomed to it. Then you began to see its good points. Whycouldn't you make the trade get your viewpoint?"

"This is why: Out in Manistee and Oshkosh and Terre Haute, the girlshave just really learned the trick of walking in tight skirts. It's asimpossible to convince a Middle West buyer that the exaggerated fullskirt is going to be worn next summer as it would be to prove to himthat men are going to wear sunbonnets. They thought I was trying tosell 'em masquerade costumes. I may believe in it, and you may believein it, and T. A. ; but the girls from Joplin--well, they're from Joplin. And they're waiting to hear from headquarters. "

T. A. Buck crossed one leg over the other and sat up with a little sigh. 

"Well, that settles it, doesn't it?" he said. 

"It does not, " replied Emma McChesney Buck crisply. "If they want tohear from headquarters, they won't have long to wait. "

"Now, Emma, don't try to push this thing if it----"

"T. A. , please don't look so forgiving. I'd much rather have youreproach me. "

"It's you I'm thinking of, not the skirt. "

"But I want you to think of the skirt, too. We've gone into thisthing, and it has cost us thousands. Don't think I'm going to sitquietly by and watch those thousands trickle out of our hands. We'veplayed our first card. It didn't take a trick. Here's another. "

Buck and Spalding were leaning forward, interested, attentive. Therewas that in Emma's vivid, glowing face which did not mean defeat. 

"March fifteenth, at Madison Square Garden, there is to be held thefirst annual exhibition of the Society for the Promotion of AmericanStyles for American Women. For one hundred years we've taken ourfashions as Paris dictated, regardless of whether they outraged oursense of humor or decency or of fitness. This year the Americandesigner is going to have a chance. Am I an American designer, T. A. , Billy?"

"Yes!" in chorus. 

"Then I shall exhibit that skirt on a live model at the First AnnualAmerican Fashion Show next month. Every skirt-buyer in the countrywill be there. If it takes hold there, it's made--and so are we. "

March came, and with it an army of men and women buyers, dependent, forthe first time in their business careers, on the ingenuity of theAmerican brain. The keen-eyed legions that had advanced on Europeearly, armed with letters of credit--the vast horde that returned eachspring and autumn laden with their spoils--hats, gowns, laces, linens, silks, embroideries--were obliged to content themselves with what wasto be found in their own camp. 

Clever manager that she was, Emma took as much pains with her model aswith the skirt itself. She chose a girl whose demure prettiness andquiet charm would enhance the possibilities of the skirt'spracticability in the eye of the shrewd buyer. Gertrude, the model, developed a real interest in the success of the petticoat. Emma knewenough about the psychology of crowds to realize how this increased herchances for success. 

The much heralded fashion show was to open at one o'clock on theafternoon of March fifteenth. At ten o'clock that morning, therebreezed in from Chicago a tall, slim, alert young man, who madestraight for the offices of the T. A. Buck Featherloom PetticoatCompany, walked into the junior partner's private office, and took thatastonished lady in his two strong arms. 

"Jock McChesney!" gasped his rumpled mother, emerging from the hug. "I've been hungry for a sight of you!" She was submerged in a secondhug. "Come here to the window where I can get a real look at you! Whydidn't you wire me? What are you doing away from your own job? How'sbusiness? And why come to-day, of all days, when I can't make a fussover you?"

Jock McChesney, bright-eyed, clear-skinned, steady of hand, stood upwell under the satisfied scrutiny of his adoring mother. He smileddown at her. 

"Wanted to surprise you. Here for three reasons--the AbbottGrape-juice advertising contract, you, and Grace. And why can't youmake a fuss over me, I'd like to know?"

Emma told him. His keen, quick mind required little in the way ofexplanation. 

"But why didn't you let me in on it sooner?"

"Because, son, nothing explains harder than embryo success. I alwaysprefer to wait until it's grown up and let it do its own explaining. "

"But the thing ought to have national advertising, " Jock insisted, withthe advertising expert's lightning grasp of its possibilities. "Whatthat skirt needs is publicity. Why didn't you let me handle----"

"Yes, I know, dear; but you haven't seen the skirt. It won't do to ramit down their throats. I want to ease it to them first. I want them toget used to it. It failed utterly on the road, because it jarred theirnotion of what a petticoat ought to be. That's due to five years ofsheath skirts. "

"But suppose--just for the sake of argument--that it doesn't strikethem right this afternoon?"

"Then it's gone, that's all. Six months from now, every skirt-factoryin the country will be manufacturing a similar garment. People will beready for it then. I've just tried to cut in ahead of the rest. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried to do it. "

Jock hugged her again at that, to the edification of the office windowsacross the way. 

"Gad, you're a wiz, mother! Now listen: I 'phoned Grace when I gotin. She's going to meet me here at one. I'll chase over to the officenow on this grape-juice thing and come back here in time for lunch. IsT. A. In? I'll look in on him a minute. We'll all lunch together, andthen----"

"Can't do it, son. The show opens at one. Gertrude, my model, comeson at three. She's going to have the stage to herself for ten minutes, during which she'll make four changes of costume to demonstrate theusefulness of the skirt for every sort of gown from chiffon to velvet. Come back here at one, if you like. If I'm not here, come over to theshow. But--lunch! I'd choke. "

At twelve-thirty, there scampered into Emma's office a verywhite-faced, round-eyed little stock-girl. Emma, deep in a last-minutediscussion with Buck, had a premonition of trouble before the girlgasped out her message. 

"Oh, Mrs. Buck, Gertie's awful sick!"

"Sick!" echoed Emma and Buck, in duet. Then Emma:

"But she can't be! It's impossible! She was all right a half hourago. " She was hurrying down the hall as she spoke. "Where is she?"

"They've got her on one of the tables in the workroom. She's moaningawful. "

Gertie's appendix, with that innate sense of the dramatic so oftenfound in temperamental appendices, had indeed chosen this moment tocall attention to itself. Gertie, the demurely pretty and quietlycharming, was rolled in a very tight ball on the workroomcutting-table. At one o'clock, she was on her way home in a cab, underthe care of a doctor, Miss Kelly, the bookkeeper, and Jock, who, comingin gaily at one, had been pressed into service, bewildered but willing. 

Three rather tragic figures stared at one another in the juniorpartner's office. They were Emma, Buck, and Grace Galt, Jock'swife-to-be. Grace Galt, slim, lovely, girlish, was known, attwenty-four, as one of the most expert copy writers in the advertisingworld. In her clear-headed, capable manner, she tried to suggest a wayout of the difficulty now. 

"But surely the world's full of girls, " she said. "It's late, I know;but any theatrical agency will send a girl over. "

"That's just what I tried to avoid, " Emma replied. "I wanted to showthis skirt on a sweet, pretty, refined sort of girl who looks and actslike a lady. One of those blond show girls would kill it. "

Gloom settled down again over the three. Emma broke the silence with arueful little laugh. 

"I think, " she said, "that perhaps you're right, T. A. , and this is theLord's way of showing me that the world is not quite ready for thisskirt. "

"You're not beaten yet, Emma, " Buck assured her vigorously. "How aboutthis new girl--what's her name?--Myrtle. She's one of those thin, limpones, isn't she? Try her. "

"I will, " said Emma. "You're right. I'm not beaten yet. I've had tofight for everything worth while in my life. I'm superstitious aboutit now. When things come easy I'm afraid of them. " Then, to thestock-girl, "Annie, tell Myrtle I want to see her. "

Silence fell again upon the three. Myrtle, very limp, very thin, verylanguid indeed, roused them at her entrance. The hopeful look inEmma's eyes faded as she beheld her. Myrtle was so obviously limp, sohopelessly new. 

"Annie says you want me to take Gertie's place, " drawled Myrtle, striking a magazine-cover attitude. 

"I don't know that you are just the--er--type; but perhaps, if you'rewilling----"

"Of course I didn't come here as a model, " said Myrtle, and sagged onthe other hip. "But, as a special favor to you I'm willing to tryit--at special model's rates. "

Emma ran a somewhat frenzied hand through her hair. 

"Then, as a special favor to me, will you begin by trying to stand upstraight, please? That debutante slouch would kill a queen'scoronation costume. "

Myrtle straightened, slumped again. 

"I can't help it if I am willowy"--listlessly. 

"Your hair!" Myrtle's hand went vaguely to her head. "I can't have youwear it that way. "

"Why, this is the French roll!" protested Myrtle, offended. 

"Then do it in a German bun!" snapped Emma. "Any way but that. Willyou walk, please?"

"Walk?"--dully. 

"Yes, walk; I want to see how you----"

Myrtle walked across the room. A groan came from Emma. 

"I thought so. " She took a long breath. 

"Myrtle, listen: That Australian crawl was necessary when our skirtswere so narrow we had to negotiate a curbing before we could take it. But the skirt you're going to demonstrate is wide. Like that! You'repractically a free woman in it. Step out! Stride! Swing! Walk!"

Myrtle tried it, stumbled, sulked. 

Emma, half smiling, half woeful, patted the girl's shoulder. 

"Oh, I see; you're wearing a tight one. Well, run in and get into theskirt. Miss Loeb will help you. Then come back here--and quickly, please. "

The three looked at each other in silence. It was a silence brimmingwith eloquent meaning. Each sought encouragement in the eyes of theother--and failed to find it. Failing, they broke into helplesslaughter. It proved a safety-valve. 

"She may do, Emma--when she has her hair done differently, and ifshe'll only stand up. "

But Emma shook her head. 

"T. A. , something tells me you're going to have a wonderful chance tosay, 'I told you so!' at three o'clock this afternoon. "

"You know I wouldn't say it, Emma. "

"Yes; I do know it, dear. But what's the difference, if the chance isthere?"

Suspense settled down on the little office. Billy Spalding entered, smiling. After five minutes of waiting, even his buoyant spirits sank. 

"Don't you think--if you were to go in and--and sort of help adjustthings----" suggested Buck vaguely. 

"No; I don't want to prop her up. She'll have to stand alone when shegets there. She'll either do, or not. When she enters that door, I'llknow. "

When Myrtle entered, wearing the fascinatingly fashioned new model, they all knew. 

Emma spoke decisively. 

"That settles it. "

"What's the matter? Don't it look all right?" demanded Myrtle. 

"Take it off, Myrtle. "

Then, to the others, as Myrtle, sulking, left the room:

"I can stand to see that skirt die if necessary. But I won't helpmurder it. "

"But, Mrs. Buck, " protested Spalding, almost tearfully, "you've got toexhibit that skirt. You've got to!"

Emma shook a sorrowing head. 

"That wouldn't be an exhibition, Billy. It would be an expose. "

Spalding clapped a desperate hand to his bald head. 

"If only I had Julian Eltinge's shape, I'd wear it to the show for youmyself. "

"That's all it needs now, " retorted Emma grimly. 

Whereupon, Grace Galt spoke up in her clear, decisive voice. 

"Wait a minute, " she said quietly. "I'm going to wear that skirt atthe fashion show. "

"You!" cried the three, like a trained trio. 

"Why not?" demanded Grace Galt, coolly. Then: "No; don't tell me whynot. I won't listen. "

But Emma, equally cool, would have none of it. 

"It's impossible, dear. You're an angel to want to help me. But youmust know it's quite out of the question. "

"It's nothing of the kind. This skirt isn't merely a fad. It has afortune in it. I'm business woman enough to know that. You've got tolet me do it. It isn't only for yourself. It's for T. A. And for thefuture of the firm. "

"Do you suppose I'd allow you to stand up before all those people?"

"Why not? I don't know them. They don't know me. I can make them getthe idea in that skirt. And I'm going to do it. You don't object tome on the same grounds that you did to Myrtle, do you?"

"You!" burst from the admiring Spalding. "Say, you'd make ared-flannel petticoat look like crepe de Chine and lace. "

"There!" said Grace, triumphant. "That settles it!" And she was offdown the hall. They stood a moment in stunned silence. Then:

"But Jock!" protested Emma, following her. "What will Jock say? Grace!Grace dear! I can't let you do it! I can't!"

"Just unhook this for me, will you?" replied Grace Galt sweetly. 

At two o'clock, Jock McChesney, returned from his errand of mercy, burst into the office to find mother, step-father, and fiancee allflown. 

"Where? What?" he demanded of the outer office. 

"Fashion show!" chorused the office staff

"Might have waited for me, " Jock said to himself, much injured. Andhurled himself into a taxi. 

There was a crush of motors and carriages for a block on all sides ofMadison Square Garden. He had to wait for what seemed an interminabletime at the box-office. Then he began the task of worming his waythrough the close-packed throng in the great auditorium. It was acrowd such as the great place had not seen since the palmy days of thehorse show. It was a crowd that sparkled and shone in silks andfeathers and furs and jewels. 

"Jove, if mother has half a chance at this gang!" Jock told himself. "If only she has grabbed some one who can really show that skirt!"

He was swept with the crowd toward a high platform at the extreme endof the auditorium. All about that platform stood hundreds, closepacked, faces raised eagerly, the better to see the slight, graceful, girlish figure occupying the center of the stage--a figure strangelyfamiliar to Jock's eyes in spite of its quaintly billowing, ante-bellumgarb. She was speaking. Jock, mouth agape, eyes protruding, earsstraining, heard, as in a daze, the sweet, clear, charmingly modulatedvoice:

"The feature of the skirt, ladies and gentlemen, is that it gives afulness without weight, something which the skirt-maker has neverbefore been able to achieve. This is due to the patent featherboningprocess invented by Mrs. T. A. Buck, of the T. A. Buck FeatherloomPetticoat Company, New York. Note, please, that it has all theadvantages of our grandmother's hoop-skirt, but none of its awkwardfeatures. It is graceful"--she turned slowly, lightly--"it isbouffant" she twirled on her toes--"it is practical, serviceable, elegant. It can be made up in any shade, in any material--silk, lace, crepe de Chine, charmeuse, taffeta. The T. A. Buck FeatherloomPetticoat Company is prepared to fill orders for immediate----"

"Well, I'll be darned!" said Jock McChesney aloud. And, again, heedless of the protesting "Sh-sh-sh-sh!" that his neighbors turnedupon him, "Well, I'll--be--darned!"

A hand twitched his coat sleeve. He turned, still dazed. His mother, very pink-cheeked, very bright-eyed, pulled him through the throng. Asthey reached the edge of the crowd, there came a great burst ofapplause, a buzz of conversation, the turning, shifting, nodding, staccato movements which mean approval in a mass of people. 

"What the dickens! How!" stammered Jock. "When--did she--did she----"

Emma, half smiling, half tearful, raised a protesting hand. 

"I don't know. Don't ask me, dear. And don't hate me for it. I triedto tell her not to, but she insisted. And, Jock, she's done it, I tellyou! She's done it! They love the skirt! Listen to 'em!"

"Don't want to, " said Jock. "Lead me to her. "

"Angry, dear!"

"Me? No! I'm--I'm proud of her! She hasn't only brains and looks, that little girl; she's got nerve--the real kind! Gee, how did I everhave the gall to ask her to marry me!"

Together they sped toward the door that led to the dressing-rooms. Buck, his fine eyes more luminous than ever as he looked at thiswonder-wife of his, met them at the entrance. 

"She's waiting for you, Jock, " he said, smiling. Jock took the stepsin one leap. 

"Well, T. A. ?" said Emma. 

"Well, Emma?" said T. A. 

Which burst of eloquence was interrupted abruptly by a short, squat, dark man, who seized Emma's hand in his left and Buck's in his right, and pumped them up and down vigorously. It was that volatile, volubleperson known to the skirt trade as Abel I. Fromkin, of the "FromkinForm-fit Skirt. It Clings!"

"I'm looking everywhere for you!" he panted. Then, his shrewd littleeyes narrowing, "You want to talk business?"

"Not here, " said Buck abruptly. 

"Sure--here, " insisted Fromkin. "Say, that's me. When I got a thingon my mind, I like to settle it. How much you take for the rights tothat skirt?"

"Take for it!" exclaimed Emma, in the tone a mother would use to onewho has suggested taking a beloved child from her. 

"Now wait a minute. Don't get mad. You ain't started that skirtright. It should have been advertised. It's too much of a shock. You'll see. They won't buy. They're afraid of it. I'll take it offyour hands and push it right, see? I offer you forty thousand for therights to make that skirt and advertise it as the 'Fromkin Full-flounceSkirt. It Flares!'"

Emma smiled. 

"How much?" she asked quizzically. 

Abel I. Fromkin gulped. 

"Fifty thousand, " he said. 

"Fifty thousand, " repeated Emma quietly, and looked at Buck. "Thanks, Mr. Fromkin! I know, now, that if it's worth fifty thousand to youto-day as the 'Fromkin Full-flounce Skirt. It Flares!' then it's worthone hundred and fifty thousand to us as the 'T. A. BuckBalloon-Petticoat. It Billows!'"

And it was. 

VI

SISTERS UNDER THEIR SKIN

Women who know the joys and sorrows of a pay envelope do not speak ofgirls who work as Working Girls. Neither do they use the term LaboringClass, as one would speak of a distinct and separate race, like theEthiopian. 

Emma McChesney Buck was no exception to this rule. Her fifteen yearsof man-size work for a man-size salary in the employ of the T. A. BuckFeatherloom Petticoat Company, New York, precluded that. In thosedays, she had been Mrs. Emma McChesney, known from coast to coast asthe most successful traveling saleswoman in the business. It was dueto her that no feminine clothes-closet was complete without aFeatherloom dangling from one hook. During those fifteen years she hadeducated her son, Jock McChesney, and made a man of him; she hadworked, fought, saved, triumphed, smiled under hardship; and she hadacquired a broad and deep knowledge of those fascinating anddiversified subjects which we lump carelessly under the heading ofHuman Nature. She was Mrs. T. A. Buck now, wife of the head of thefirm, and partner in the most successful skirt manufactory in thecountry. But the hard-working, clear-thinking, sane-acting habits ofthose fifteen years still clung. 

Perhaps this explained why every machine-girl in the big, bright shopback of the offices raised adoring eyes when Emma entered the workroom. Italian, German, Hungarian, Russian--they lifted their faces towardthis source of love and sympathetic understanding as naturally as aplant turns its leaves toward the sun. They glowed under her praise;they confided to her their troubles; they came to her with theirjoys--and they copied her clothes. 

This last caused her some uneasiness. When Mrs. T. A. Buck wore blueserge, an epidemic of blue serge broke out in the workroom. Did Emma'sspring hat flaunt flowers, the elevators, at closing time, looked likegardens abloom. If she appeared on Monday morning in severely tailoredwhite-linen blouse, the shop on Tuesday was a Boston seminary in itsstarched primness. 

"It worries me, " Emma told her husband-partner. "I can't help thinkingof the story of the girl and the pet chameleon. What would happen if Iwere to forget myself some day and come down to work in black velvetand pearls?"

"They'd manage it somehow, " Buck assured her. "I don't know just how;but I'm sure that twenty-four hours later our shop would look like aBuckingham drawing-room when the court is in mourning. "

Emma never ceased to marvel at their ingenuity, at their almost uncannyclothes-instinct. Their cheap skirts hung and fitted with an art asperfect as that of a Fifty-seventh Street modiste; their blouses, insome miraculous way, were of to-day's style, down to the last detail ofcuff or collar or stitching; their hats were of the shape that theseason demanded, set at the angle that the season approved, andfinished with just that repression of decoration which is known as"single trimming. " They wore their clothes with a chic that would makethe far-famed Parisian outriere look dowdy and down at heel incomparison. Upper Fifth Avenue, during the shopping or tea-hour, hasbeen sung, painted, vaunted, boasted. Its furs and millinery, its eyesand figure, its complexion and ankles have flashed out at us from tenthousand magazine covers, have been adjectived in reams ofSunday-supplement stories. Who will picture Lower Fifth Avenue betweenfive and six, when New York's unsung beauties pour into the streetsfrom a thousand loft-buildings? Theirs is no mere empty pink-and-whiteprettiness. Poverty can make prettiness almost poignantly lovely, forit works with a scalpel. Your Twenty-sixth Street beauty has a certainwistful appeal that your Forty-sixth Street beauty lacks; her verybravado, too, which falls just short of boldness, adds a final piquanttouch. In the face of the girl who works, whether she be aspindle-legged errand-girl or a ten-thousand-a-year foreign buyer, youwill find both vivacity and depth of expression. What she loses insoftness and bloom she gains in a something that peeps from her eyes, that lurks in the corners of her mouth. Emma never tired of studyingthem--these girls with their firm, slim throats, their lovely faces, their Oriental eyes, and their conscious grace. Often, as she looked, an unaccountable mist of tears would blur her vision. 

So that sunny little room whose door was marked "MRS. BUCK" had come tobe more than a mere private office for the transaction of business. Itwas a clearing-house for trouble; it was a shrine, a confessional, anda court of justice. When Carmela Colarossi, her face swollen withweeping, told a story of parental harshness grown unbearable, Emmawould put aside business to listen, and six o'clock would find herseated in the dark and smelly Colarossi kitchen, trying, with all hertact and patience and sympathy, to make home life possible again forthe flashing-eyed Carmela. When the deft, brown fingers of Otti Markisbecame clumsy at her machine, and her wage slumped unaccountably fromsixteen to six dollars a week, it was in Emma's quiet little officethat it became clear why Otti's eyes were shadowed and why Otti's mouthdrooped so pathetically. Emma prescribed a love philter made up ofcommon sense, understanding, and world-wisdom. Otti took it, only halfcomprehending, but sure of its power. In a week, Otti's eyes wereshadowless, her lips smiling, her pay-envelope bulging. But it was inSophy Kumpf that the T. A. Buck Company best exemplified its policy. Sophy Kumpf had come to Buck's thirty years before, slim, pink-cheeked, brown-haired. She was a grandmother now, at forty-six, broad-bosomed, broad-hipped, but still pink of cheek and brown of hair. In thosethirty years she had spent just three away from Buck's. She had broughther children into the world; she had fed them and clothed them and sentthem to school, had Sophy, and seen them married, and helped them tobring their children into the world in turn. In her round, red, wholesome face shone a great wisdom, much love, and that infiniteunderstanding which is born only of bitter experience. She had come toBuck's when old T. A. Was just beginning to make Featherlooms anational institution. She had seen his struggles, his prosperity; shehad grieved at his death; she had watched young T. A. Take the reins inhis unaccustomed hands, and she had gloried in Emma McChesney's risefrom office to salesroom, from salesroom to road, from road to privateoffice and recognized authority. Sophy had left her early work farbehind. She had her own desk now in the busy workshop, and it was shewho allotted the piece-work, marked it in her much-thumbed ledger--thatpowerful ledger which, at the week's end, decided just how plump orthin each pay-envelope would be. So the shop and office at T. A. Buck's were bound together by many ties of affection and sympathy andloyalty; and these bonds were strongest where, at one end, they touchedEmma McChesney Buck, and, at the other, faithful Sophy Kumpf. Each atriumphant example of Woman in Business. 

It was at this comfortable stage of Featherloom affairs that theMovement struck the T. A. Buck Company. Emma McChesney Buck had nevermingled much in movements. Not that she lacked sympathy with them; sheoften approved of them, heart and soul. But she had been heard to saythat the Movers got on her nerves. Those well-dressed, glib, staccatoladies who spoke with such ease from platforms and whose picturesstared out at one from the woman's page failed, somehow, to convinceher. When Emma approved a new movement, it was generally in spite ofthem, never because of them. She was brazenly unapologetic when shesaid that she would rather listen to ten minutes of Sophy Kumpf'sworld-wisdom than to an hour's talk by the most magnetic andsilken-clad spellbinder in any cause. For fifteen business years, inthe office, on the road, and in the thriving workshop, Emma McChesneyhad met working women galore. Women in offices, women in stores, womenin hotels--chamber-maids, clerks, buyers, waitresses, actresses in roadcompanies, women demonstrators, occasional traveling saleswomen, womenin factories, scrubwomen, stenographers, models--every grade, type andvariety of working woman, trained and untrained. She never missed achance to talk with them. She never failed to learn from them. Shehad been one of them, and still was. She was in the position of one whois on the inside, looking out. Those other women urging this cause orthat were on the outside, striving to peer in. 

The Movement struck T. A. Buck's at eleven o'clock Monday morning. Eleven o'clock Monday morning in the middle of a busy fall season isnot a propitious moment for idle chit-chat. The three women whostepped out of the lift at the Buck Company's floor looked very muchout of place in that hummingly busy establishment and appeared, on thesurface, at least, very chit-chatty indeed. So much so, that T. A. Buck, glancing up from the cards which had preceded them, haddifficulty in repressing a frown of annoyance. T. A. Buck, during hiscollege-days, and for a lamentably long time after, had been known as"Beau" Buck, because of his faultless clothes and his charming manner. His eyes had something to do with it, too, no doubt. He had lived downthe title by sheer force of business ability. No one thought of usingthe nickname now, though the clothes, the manner, and the eyes were thesame. At the entrance of the three women, he had been engrossed in thedifficult task of selling a fall line to Mannie Nussbaum, of Portland, Oregon. Mannie was what is known as a temperamental buyer. He couldn'tbe forced; he couldn't be coaxed; he couldn't be led. But when heliked a line he bought like mad, never cancelled, and T. A. Buck hadjust got him going. It spoke volumes for his self-control that hecould advance toward the waiting three, his manner correct, hisexpression bland. 

"I am Mr. Buck, " he said. "Mrs. Buck is very much engaged. Iunderstand your visit has something to do with the girls in the shop. I'm sure our manager will be able to answer any questions----"

The eldest women raised a protesting, white-gloved hand. 

"Oh, no--no, indeed! We must see Mrs. Buck. " She spoke in the crisp, decisive platform-tones of one who is often addressed as "MadamChairman. "

Buck took a firmer grip on his self-control. 

"I'm sorry; Mrs. Buck is in the cutting-room. "

"We'll wait, " said the lady, brightly. She stepped back a pace. "Thisis Miss Susan H. Croft"--indicating a rather sparse person of verycertain years--"But I need scarcely introduce her. "

"Scarcely, " murmured Buck, and wondered why. 

"This is my daughter, Miss Gladys Orton-Wells. "

Buck found himself wondering why this slim, negative creature shouldhave such sad eyes. There came an impatient snort from MannieNussbaum. Buck waved a hasty hand in the direction of Emma's office. 

"If you'll wait there, I'll send in to Mrs. Buck. "

The three turned toward Emma's bright little office. Buck scribbled ahasty word on one of the cards. 

Emma McChesney Buck was leaning over the great cutting-table, shears inhand. It might almost be said that she sprawled. Her eyes were verybright, and her cheeks were very pink. Across the table stood adesigner and two cutters, and they were watching Emma with anintentness as flattering as it was sincere. They were looking not onlyat cloth but at an idea. 

"Get that?" asked Emma crisply, and tapped the pattern spread beforeher with the point of her shears. "That gives you the fulness withoutbunching, d'you see?"

"Sure, " assented Koritz, head designer; "but when you get it cut you'llfind this piece is wasted, ain't it?" He marked out a triangularsection of cloth with one expert forefinger. 

"No; that works into the ruffle, " explained Emma. "Here, I'll cut it. Then you'll see. "

She grasped the shears firmly in her right hand, smoothed the clothspread before her with a nervous little pat of her left, pushed herbright hair back from her forehead, and prepared to cut. At whichcritical moment there entered Annie, the errand-girl, with the threebits of white pasteboard. 

Emma glanced down at them and waved Annie away. 

"Can't see them. Busy. "

Annie stood her ground. 

"Mr. Buck said you'd see 'em. They're waiting. "

Emma picked up one of the cards. On it Buck had scribbled a singleword: "Movers. " Mrs. T. A. Buck smiled. A little malicious gleamcame into her eyes. 

"Show 'em in here, Annie, " she commanded, with a wave of the hugeshears. "I'll teach 'em to interrupt me when I've got my hands in thebluing-water. "

She bent over the table again, measuring with her keen eye. When thethree were ushered in a moment later, she looked up briefly and nodded, then bent over the table again. But in that brief moment she had thethree marked, indexed and pigeonholed. If one could have looked intothat lightning mind of hers, one would have found something like this:

"Hmm! What Ida Tarbell calls 'Restless women. ' Money, and always havehad it. Those hats were born in one of those exclusive little shopsoff the Avenue. Rich but somber. They think they're advanced, butthey still resent the triumph of the motor-car over the horse. Thatgirl can't call her soul her own. Good eyes, but too sad. He probablydidn't suit mother. "

What she said was:

"Howdy-do. We're just bringing a new skirt into the world. I thoughtyou might like to be in at the birth. "

"How very interesting!" chirped the two older women. The girl saidnothing, but a look of anticipation brightened her eyes. It deepenedand glowed as Emma McChesney Buck bent to her task and the great jawsof the shears opened and shut on the virgin cloth. Six pairs of eyesfollowed the fascinating steel before which the cloth rippled and fellaway, as water is cleft by the prow of a stanch little boat. Aroundthe curves went the shears, guided by Emma's firm white hands, snipping, slashing, doubling on itself, a very swashbuckler of a shears. 

"There!" exclaimed Emma at last, and dropped the shears on the tablewith a clatter. "Put that together and see whether it makes a skirt ornot. Now, ladies!"

The three drew a long breath. It was the sort of sound that comes upfrom the crowd when a sky-rocket has gone off successfully, with afinal shower of stars. 

"Do you do that often?" ventured Mrs. Orton-Wells. 

"Often enough to keep my hand in, " replied Emma, and led the way to heroffice. 

The three followed in silence. They were strangely silent, too, asthey seated themselves around Emma Buck's desk. Curiously enough, itwas the subdued Miss Orton-Wells who was the first to speak. 

"I'll never rest, " she said, "until I see that skirt finished andactually ready to wear. "

She smiled at Emma. When she did that, you saw that Miss Orton-Wellshad her charm. Emma smiled back, and patted the girl's hand just once. At that there came a look into Miss Orton-Wells' eyes, and you saw thatmost decidedly she had her charm. 

Up spoke Mrs. Orton-Wells. 

"Gladys is such an enthusiast! That's really her reason for beinghere. Gladys is very much interested in working girls. In fact, weare all, as you probably know, intensely interested in the workingwoman. "

"Thank you!" said Emma McChesney Buck. 

"That's very kind. We working women are very grateful to you. "

"We!" exclaimed Mrs. Orton-Wells and Miss Susan Croft blankly, and inperfect time. 

Emma smiled sweetly. 

"Surely you'll admit that I'm a working woman. "

Miss Susan H. Croft was not a person to be trifled with. Sheelucidated acidly. 

"We mean women who work with their hands. "

"By what power do you think those shears were moved across thecutting-table? We don't cut our patterns with an ouija-board. "

Mrs. Orton-Wells rustled protestingly. 

"But, my dear Mrs. Buck, you know, we mean women of the Laboring Class. "

"I'm in this place of business from nine to five, Monday to Saturday, inclusive. If that doesn't make me a member of the laboring class Idon't want to belong. "

It was here that Mrs. Orton-Wells showed herself a woman not to betrifled with. She moved forward to the edge of her chair, fixed EmmaBuck with determined eyes, and swept into midstream, sails spread. 

"Don't be frivolous, Mrs. Buck. We are here on a serious errand. Itought to interest you vitally because of the position you occupy in theworld of business. We are launching a campaign against theextravagant, ridiculous, and oftentimes indecent dress of the workinggirl, with especial reference to the girl who works in garmentfactories. They squander their earnings in costumes absurdly unfittedto their station in life. Our plan is to influence them in thedirection of neatness, modesty, and economy in dress. At present eachtries to outdo the other in style and variety of costume. Their shoesare high-heeled, cloth-topped, their blouses lacy and collarless, theirhats absurd. We propose a costume which shall be neat, becoming, andappropriate. Not exactly a uniform, perhaps, but something with afixed idea in cut, color, and style. A corps of twelve young ladiesbelonging to our best families has been chosen to speak to the shopgirls at noon meetings on the subject of good taste, health, andmorality in women's dress. My daughter Gladys is one of them. In thisway, we hope to convince them that simplicity, and practicality, andneatness are the only proper notes in the costume of the working girl. Occupying as you do a position unique in the business world, Mrs. Buck, we expect much from your cooperation with us in this cause. "

Emma McChesney Buck had been gazing at Mrs. Orton-Wells with anintentness as flattering as it was unfeigned. But at the close of Mrs. Orton-Wells' speech she was strangely silent. She glanced down at hershoes. Now, Emma McChesney Buck had a weakness for smart shoes whichher slim, well-arched foot excused. Hers were what might be calledintelligent-looking feet. There was nothing thick, nothing clumsy, nothing awkward about them. And Emma treated them with theconsideration they deserved. They were shod now, in a pair of slim, aristocratic, and modish ties above which the grateful eye caught aflashing glimpse of black-silk stocking. Then her eye traveled up hersmartly tailored skirt, up the bodice of that well-made and becomingcostume until her glance rested on her own shoulder and paused. Thenshe looked up at Mrs. Orton-Wells. The eyes of Mrs. Orton-Wells, MissSusan H. Croft, and Miss Gladys Orton-Wells had, by some strange powerof magnetism, followed the path of Emma's eyes. They finished just onesecond behind her, so that when she raised her eyes it was to encountertheirs. 

"I have explained, " retorted Mrs. Orton-Wells, tartly, in reply tonothing, seemingly, "that our problem is with the factory girl. Sherepresents a distinct and separate class. "

Emma McChesney Buck nodded:

"I understand. Our girls are very young--eighteen, twenty, twenty-two. At eighteen, or thereabouts, practical garments haven't the strongappeal that you might think they have. "

"They should have, " insisted Mrs. Orton-Wells. 

"Maybe, " said Emma Buck gently. "But to me it seems just as reasonableto argue that an apple tree has no right to wear pink-and-whiteblossoms in the spring, so long as it is going to bear sober russets inthe autumn. "

Miss Susan H. Croft rustled indignantly. 

"Then you refuse to work with us? You will not consent to MissOrton-Wells' speaking to the girls in your shop this noon?"

Emma looked at Gladys Orton-Wells. Gladys was wearing black, and blackdid not become her. It made her creamy skin sallow. Her suit wasseverely tailored, and her hat was small and harshly outlined, and herhair was drawn back from her face. All this, in spite of the fact thatMiss Orton-Wells was of the limp and fragile type, which demandsruffles, fluffiness, flowing lines and frou-frou. Emma's glance at thesuppressed Gladys was as fleeting as it was keen, but it sufficed tobring her to a decision. She pressed a buzzer at her desk. 

"I shall be happy to have Miss Orton-Wells speak to the girls in ourshop this noon, and as often as she cares to speak. If she canconvince the girls that a--er--fixed idea in cut, color, and style isthe thing to be adopted by shop-workers I am perfectly willing thatthey be convinced. "

Then to Annie, who appeared in answer to the buzzer, "Will you tell Sophy Kumpf to come here, please?"

Mrs. Orton-Wells beamed. The somber plumes in her correct hat bobbedand dipped to Emma. The austere Miss Susan H. Croft unbent in anutcracker smile. Only Miss Gladys Orton-Wells remained silent, thoughtful, unenthusiastic. Her eyes were on Emma's face. 

A heavy, comfortable step sounded in the hall outside the office door. Emma turned with a smile to the stout, motherly, red-cheeked woman whoentered, smoothing her coarse brown hair with work-roughened fingers. 

Emma took one of those calloused hands in hers. 

"Sophy, we need your advice. This is Mrs. Sophy Kumpf--Mrs. Orton-Wells, Miss Susan H. Croft"--Sophy threw her a keen glance; sheknew that name--"and Miss Orton-Wells. " Of the four, Sophy was themost at ease. 

"Pleased to meet you, " said Sophy Kumpf. 

The three bowed, but did not commit themselves. Emma, her hand stillon Sophy's, elaborated:

"Sophy Kumpf has been with the T. A. Buck Company for thirty years. She could run this business single-handed, if she had to. She knows anymachine in the shop, can cut a pattern, keep books, run the entireplant if necessary. If there's anything about petticoats that Sophydoesn't know, it's because it hasn't been invented yet. Sophy wassixteen when she came to Buck's. I've heard she was the prettiest andbest dressed girl in the shop. "

"Oh, now, Mrs. Buck!" remonstrated Sophy. 

Emma tried to frown as she surveyed Sophy's bright eyes, her rosycheeks, her broad bosom, her ample hips--all that made Sophy an objectto comfort and rest the eye. 

"Don't dispute, Sophy. Sophy has educated her children, married themoff, and welcomed their children. She thinks that excuses her forhaving been frivolous and extravagant at sixteen. But we know better, don't we? I'm using you as a horrible example, Sophy. "

Sophy turned affably to the listening three. 

"Don't let her string you, " she said, and winked one knowing eye. 

Mrs. Orton-Wells stiffened. Miss Susan H. Croft congealed. But MissGladys Orton-Wells smiled. And then Emma knew she was right. 

"Sophy, who's the prettiest girl in our shop? And the best dressed?"

"Lily Bernstein, " Sophy made prompt answer. 

"Send her in to us, will you? And give her credit for lost time whenshe comes back to the shop. "

Sophy, with a last beamingly good-natured smile, withdrew. Fiveminutes later, when Lily Bernstein entered the office, Sophy qualifiedas a judge of beauty. Lily Bernstein was a tiger-lily--all browns andgolds and creams, all graciousness and warmth and lovely curves. Asshe came into the room, Gladys Orton-Wells seemed as bloodless and paleand ineffectual as a white moth beside a gorgeous tawny butterfly. 

Emma presented the girl as formally as she had Sophy Kumpf. And LilyBernstein smiled upon them, and her teeth were as white and even as oneknew they would be before she smiled. Lily had taken off hershop-apron. Her gown was blue serge, cheap in quality, flawless as tocut and fit, and incredibly becoming. Above it, her vivid face glowedlike a golden rose. 

"Lily, " said Emma, "Miss Orton-Wells is going to speak to the girlsthis noon. I thought you might help by telling her whatever she wantsto know about the girls' work and all that, and by making her feel athome. "

"Well, sure, " said Lily, and smiled again her heart-warming smile. "I'd love to. "

"Miss Orton-Wells, " went on Emma smoothly, "wants to speak to the girlsabout clothes. "

Lily looked again at Miss Orton-Wells, and she did not mean to becruel. Then she looked quickly at Emma, to detect a possible joke. But Mrs. Buck's face bore no trace of a smile. 

"Clothes!" repeated Lily. And a slow red mounted to GladysOrton-Wells' pale face. When Lily went out Sunday afternoons, she mighthave passed for a millionaire's daughter if she hadn't been so welldressed. 

"Suppose you take Miss Orton-Wells into the shop, " suggested Emma, "sothat she may have some idea of the size and character of our familybefore she speaks to it. How long shall you want to speak?"

Miss Orton-Wells started nervously, stammered a little, stopped. 

"Oh, ten minutes, " said Mrs. Orton-Wells graciously. 

"Five, " said Gladys, quickly, and followed Lily Bernstein into theworkroom. 

Mrs. Orton-Wells and Miss Susan H. Croft gazed after them. 

"Rather attractive, that girl, in a coarse way, " mused Mrs. Orton-Wells. "If only we can teach them to avoid the cheap and tawdry. If only we can train them to appreciate the finer things in life. Ofcourse, their life is peculiar. Their problems are not our problems;their----"

"Their problems are just exactly our problems, " interrupted Emmacrisply. "They use garlic instead of onion, and they don't bathe asoften as we do; but, then, perhaps we wouldn't either, if we hadn'ttubs and showers so handy. "

In the shop, queer things were happening to Gladys Orton-Wells. At herentrance into the big workroom, one hundred pairs of eyes had lifted, dropped, and, in that one look, condemned her hat, suit, blouse, veiland tout ensemble. When you are on piece-work you squander very littletime gazing at uplift visitors in the wrong kind of clothes. 

Gladys Orton-Wells looked about the big, bright workroom. The noondaysun streamed in from a dozen great windows. There seemed, somehow, tobe a look of content and capableness about those heads bent so busilyover the stitching. 

"It looks--pleasant, " said Gladys Orton-Wells. 

"It ain't bad. Of course it's hard sitting all day. But I'd rather dothat than stand from eight to six behind a counter. And there's goodmoney in it. "

Gladys Orton-Wells turned wistful eyes on friendly little LilyBernstein. 

"I'd like to earn money, " she said. "I'd like to work. "

"Well, why don't you?" demanded Lily. 

"Work's all the style this year. They're all doing it. Look at theVanderbilts and that Morgan girl, and the whole crowd. These days youcan't tell whether the girl at the machine next to you lives in theBronx or on Fifth Avenue. "

"It must be wonderful to earn your own clothes. "

"Believe me, " laughed Lily Bernstein, "it ain't so wonderful whenyou've had to do it all your life. "

She studied the pale girl before her with brows thoughtfully knit. Lily had met too many uplifters to be in awe of them. Besides, acertain warm-hearted friendliness was hers for every one she met. So, like the child she was, she spoke what was in her mind:

"Say, listen, dearie. I wouldn't wear black if I was you. And thatplain stuff--it don't suit you. I'm like that, too. There's somethings I can wear and others I look fierce in. I'd like you in one ofthem big flat hats and a full skirt like you see in the ads, with lotsof ribbons and tag ends and bows on it. D'you know what I mean?"

"My mother was a Van Cleve, " said Gladys drearily, as though thatexplained everything. So it might have, to any but a Lily Bernstein. 

Lily didn't know what a Van Cleve was, but she sensed it as a drawback. 

"Don't you care. Everybody's folks have got something the matter with'em. Especially when you're a girl. But if I was you, I'd go rightahead and do what I wanted to. "

In the doorway at the far end of the shop appeared Emma with her twovisitors. Mrs. Orton-Wells stopped and said something to a girl at amachine, and her very posture and smile reeked of an offensivekindliness, a condescending patronage. 

Gladys Orton-Wells did a strange thing. She saw her mother comingtoward her. She put one hand on Lily Bernstein's arm and she spokehurriedly and in a little gasping voice. 

"Listen! Would you--would you marry a man who hadn't any money tospeak of, and no sort of family, if you loved him, even if your motherwouldn't--wouldn't----"

"Would I! Say, you go out to-morrow morning and buy yourself one ofthem floppy hats and a lace waist over flesh-colored chiffon and getmarried in it. Don't get it white, with your coloring. Get it kind ofcream. You're so grand and thin, this year's things will look lovelyon you. "

A bell shrilled somewhere in the shop. A hundred machines stoppedtheir whirring. A hundred heads came up with a sigh of relief. Chairswere pushed back, aprons unbuttoned. 

Emma McChesney Buck stepped forward and raised a hand for attention. The noise of a hundred tongues was stilled. 

"Girls, Miss Gladys Orton-Wells is going to speak to you for fiveminutes on the subject of dress. Will you give her your attention, please. The five minutes will be added to your noon hour. "

Gladys Orton-Wells looked down at her hands for one terrified moment, then she threw her head up bravely. There was no lack of color in hercheeks now. She stepped to the middle of the room. 

"What I have to say won't take five minutes, " she said, in her clear, well-bred tones. 

"You all dress so smartly, and I'm such a dowd, I just want to ask youwhether you think I ought to get blue, or that new shade of gray for atraveling-suit. "

And the shop, hardened to the eccentricities of noonday speakers, madecomposed and ready answer:

"Oh, get blue; it's always good. "

"Thank you, " laughed Gladys Orton-Wells, and was off down the hall andaway, with never a backward glance at her gasping and outraged mother. 

Emma McChesney Buck took Lily Bernstein's soft cheek between thumb andforefinger and pinched it ever so fondly. 

"I knew you'd do it, Judy O'Grady, " she said. 

"Judy O'Who?"

"O'Grady--a lady famous in history. "

"Oh, now, quit your kiddin', Mrs. Buck!" said Lily Bernstein. 

VII

AN ETUDE FOR EMMA

If you listen long enough, and earnestly enough, and with earsufficiently attuned to the music of this sphere there will come to youthis reward: The violins and oboes and 'cellos and brasses of humanitywhich seemed all at variance with each other will unite as oneinstrument; seeming discords and dissonances will blend into harmony, and the wail and blare and thrum of humanity's orchestra will sound inyour ear the sublime melody of that great symphony called Life. 

In her sunny little private office on the twelfth floor of the greatloft-building that housed the T. A. Buck Company, Emma McChesney Bucksat listening to the street-sounds that were wafted to her, mellowed byheight and distance. The noises, taken separately, were thenerve-racking sounds common to a busy down-town New York cross-street. By the time they reached the little office on the twelfth floor, theywere softened, mellowed, debrutalized, welded into a weird choirlikechant first high, then low, rising, swelling, dying away, rising againto a dull roar, with now and then vast undertones like the rumbling ofa cathedral pipe-organ. Emma knew that the high, clear tenor note wasthe shrill cry of the lame "newsie" at the corner of Sixth Avenue andTwenty-sixth Street. Those deep, thunderous bass notes were thecombined reverberation of nearby "L" trains, distant subway andclanging surface cars. That sharp staccato was a motorman clanging hisbell of warning. These things she knew. But she liked, nevertheless, to shut her eyes for a moment in the midst of her busy day and listento the chant of the city as it came up to her, subdued, softened, strangely beautified. The sound saddened even while it filled her witha certain exaltation. We have no one word for that sensation. TheGerman (there's a language!) has it--Weltschmerz. 

As distance softened the harsh sounds to her ears, so time andexperience had given her a perspective on life itself. She saw it, notas a series of incidents, pleasant and unpleasant, but as a greatuniversal scheme too mighty to comprehend--a scheme that always workeditself out in some miraculous way. 

She had had a singularly full life, had Emma McChesney Buck. A lifereplete with work, leavened by sorrows, sweetened with happiness. These ingredients make for tolerance. She saw, for example, how thecapable, modern staff in the main business office had forged ahead ofold Pop Henderson. Pop Henderson had been head bookkeeper for years. But the pen in his trembling hand made queer spidery marks in theledgers now, and his figure seven was very likely to look like adrunken letter "z. " The great bulk of his work was done by thecapable, comely Miss Kelly who could juggle figures like a Cinquevalli. His shaking, blue-veined yellow hand was no match for Miss Kelly'scool, firm fingers. But he stayed on at Buck's, and no one dreamed ofinsulting him with talk of a pension, least of all Emma. She saw thework-worn pathetic old man not only as a figure but as a symbol. 

Jock McChesney, very young, very handsome, very successful, coming onto New York from Chicago to be married in June, found his motherwrapped in this contemplative calm. Now, Emma McChesney Buck, motherof an about-to-be-married son, was also surprisingly young andastonishingly handsome and highly successful. Jock, in a lucid momentthe day before his wedding, took occasion to comment rather resentfullyon his mother's attitude. 

"It seems to me, " he said gloomily, "that for a mother whose only sonis about to be handed over to what the writers call the other woman, you're pretty resigned, not to say cheerful. "

Emma glanced up at him as he stood there, so tall and straight andaltogether good to look at, and the glow of love and pride in her eyesbelied the lightness of her words. 

"I know it, " she said, with mock seriousness, "and it worries me. Ican't imagine why I fail to feel those pangs that mothers are supposedto suffer at this time. I ought to rend my garments and beat mybreast, but I can't help thinking of what a stunning girl Grace Galtis, and what a brain she has, and how lucky you are to get her. Anygirl--with the future that girl had in the advertising field--who'llgive up four thousand a year and her independence to marry a man doesit for love, let me tell you. If anybody knows you better than yourmother, son, I'd hate to know who it is. And if anybody loves you morethan your mother--well, we needn't go into that, because it would haveto be hypothetical, anyway. You see, Jock, I've loved you so long andso well that I know your faults as well as your virtues; and I loveyou, not in spite of them but because of them. 

"Oh, I don't know, " interrupted Jock, with some warmth, "I'm notperfect, but a fellow----"

"Perfect! Jock McChesney, when I think of Grace's feelings when shediscovers that you never close a closet door! When I contemplate heremotions on hearing your howl at finding one seed in your orange juiceat breakfast! When she learns of your secret and unholy passion forneckties that have a dash of red in 'em, and how you have to berestrained by force from----"

With a simulated roar of rage, Jock McChesney fell upon his mother witha series of bear-hugs that left her flushed, panting, limp, butbright-eyed. 

It was to her husband that Emma revealed the real source of her Spartancalm. The wedding was over. There had been a quiet littlecelebration, after which Jock McChesney had gone West with his verylovely young wife. Emma had kissed her very tenderly, very soberlyafter the brief ceremony. "Mrs. McChesney, " she had said, and hervoice shook ever so little; "Mrs. Jock McChesney!" And the new Mrs. McChesney, a most astonishingly intuitive young woman indeed, hadunderstood. 

T. A. Buck, being a man, puzzled over it a little. That night, whenEmma had reached the kimono and hair-brushing stage, he ventured tospeak his wonderment. 

"D'you know, Emma, you were about the calmest and most serene motherthat I ever did see at a son's wedding. Of course I didn't expect youto have hysterics, or anything like that. I've always said that, whenit came to repose and self-control, you could make the German Empresslook like a hoyden. But I always thought that, at such times, a motherviewed her new daughter-in-law as a rival, that the very sight of herfilled her with a jealous rage like that of a tigress whose cub istaken from her. I must say you were so smiling and urbane that Ithought it was almost uncomplimentary to the young couple. You didn'teven weep, you unnatural woman!"

Emma, seated before her dressing-table, stopped brushing her hair andsat silent a moment, looking down with unseeing eyes at the brush inher hand. 

"I know it, T. A. Would you like to have me tell you why?"

He came over to her then and ran a tender hand down the length of herbright hair. Then he kissed the top of her head. This satisfactoryperformance he capped by saying:

"I think I know why. It's because the minister hesitated a minute andlooked from you to Grace and back again, not knowing which was thebride. The way you looked in that dress, Emma, was enough to reconcileany woman to losing her entire family. "

"T. A. , you do say the nicest things to me. "

"Like 'em, Emma?"

"Like 'em? You know perfectly well that you never can offend me bymaking me compliments like that. I not only like them; I actuallybelieve them!"

"That's because I mean them, Emma. Now, out with that reason!"

Emma stood up then and put her hands on his shoulders. But she was notlooking at him. She was gazing past him, her eyes dreamy, contemplative. 

"I don't know whether I'll be able to explain to you just how I feelabout it. I'll probably make a mess of it. But I'll try. You see, dear, it's just this way: Two years ago--a year ago, even--I mighthave felt just that sensation of personal resentment and loss. Butsomehow, lately, I've been looking at life through--how shall I putit?--through seven-league glasses. I used to see life in its relationto me and mine. Now I see it in terms of my relation to it. Do youget me? I was the soloist, and the world my orchestral accompaniment. Lately, I've been content just to step back with the other instrumentsand let my little share go to make up a more perfect whole. In thoseyears, long before I met you, when Jock was all I had in the world, Iworked and fought and saved that he might have the proper start, theproper training, and environment. And I did succeed in giving himthose things. Well, as I looked at him there to-day I saw him, not asmy son, my property that was going out of my control into the hands ofanother woman, but as a link in the great chain that I had helped toforge--a link as strong and sound and perfect as I could make it. Isaw him, not as my boy, Jock McChesney, but as a unit. When I am goneI shall still live in him, and he in turn will live in his children. There! I've muddled it--haven't I?--as I said I would. But I think"--And she looked into her husband's glowing eyes. --"No; I'm sure youunderstand. And when I die, T. A. ----"

"You, Emma!" And he held her close, and then held her off to look ather through quizzical, appreciative eyes. "Why, girl, I can't imagineyou doing anything so passive. "

In the busy year that followed, anyone watching Emma McChesney Buck asshe worked and played and constructed, and helped others to work andplay and construct, would have agreed with T. A. Buck. She did notseem a woman who was looking at life objectively. As she went abouther home in the evening, or the office, the workroom, or the showroomsduring the day, adjusting this, arranging that, smoothing out snarls, solving problems of business or household, she was very much alive, very vital, very personal, very electric. In that year there came toher many letters from Jock and Grace--happy letters, all of them, somewith an undertone of great seriousness, as is fitting when two peopleare readjusting their lives. Then, in spring, came the news of thebaby. The telegram came to Emma as she sat in her office near theclose of a busy day. As she read it and reread it, the slip of paperbecame a misty yellow with vague lines of blue dancing about on it;then it became a blur of nothing in particular, as Emma's tears fell onit in a little shower of joy and pride and wonder at the eternalmiracle. 

Then she dried her eyes, mopped the telegram and her lace jabotimpartially, went across the hall and opened the door marked "T. A. BUCK. "

T. A. Looked up from his desk, smiled, held out a hand. 

"Girl or boy?"

"Girl, of course, " said Emma tremulously, "and her name is EmmaMcChesney. "

T. A. Stood up and put an arm about his wife's shoulders. 

"Lean on me, grandma, " he said. 

"Fiend!" retorted Emma, and reread the telegram happily. She folded itthen, with a pensive sigh, "I hope she'll look like Grace. But withJock's eyes. They were wasted in a man. At any rate, she ought to bea raving, tearing beauty with that father and mother. "

"What about her grandmother, when it comes to looks! Yes, and think ofthe brain she'll have, " Buck reminded her excitedly. "Great Scott!With a grandmother who has made the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat ahousehold word, and a mother who was the cleverest woman advertisingcopy-writer in New York, this young lady ought to be a composite HettyGreen, Madame de Stael, Hypatia, and Emma McChesney Buck. She'll be alady wizard of finance or a----"

"She'll be nothing of the kind, " Emma disputed calmly. "That childwill be a throwback. The third generation generally is. With amilitant mother and a grandmother such as that child has, she'll justnaturally be a clinging vine. She'll be a reversion to type. She'llbe the kind who'll make eyes and wear pale blue and be crazy about newembroidery-stitches. Just mark my words, T. A. "

Buck had a brilliant idea. 

"Why don't you pack a bag and run over to Chicago for a few days andsee this marvel of the age?"

But Emma shook her head. 

"Not now, T. A. Later. Let the delicate machinery of that newhousehold adjust itself and begin to run smoothly and sweetly again. Anyone who might come in now--even Jock's mother--would be only anoutsider. "

So she waited very patiently and considerately. There was much tooccupy her mind that spring. Business was unexpectedly andgratifyingly good. Then, too, one of their pet dreams was beingrealized; they were to have their own house in the country, atWestchester. Together they had pored over the plans. It was to be ahouse of wide, spacious verandas, of fireplaces, of bookshelves, ofgreat, bright windows, and white enamel and cheerful chintz. By theend of May it was finished, furnished, and complete. At which asurprising thing happened; and yet, not so surprising. A demon ofrestlessness seized Emma McChesney Buck. It had been a busy, happywinter, filled with work. Now that it was finished, there came uponEmma and Buck that unconscious and quite natural irritation whichfollows a long winter spent together by two people, no matter how muchin harmony. Emma pulled herself up now and then, horrified to find arasping note of impatience in her voice. Buck found himself, once ortwice, fairly caught in a little whirlpool of ill temper of his ownmaking. These conditions they discovered almost simultaneously. Andlike the comrades they were, they talked it over and came to a sensibleunderstanding. 

"We're a bit ragged and saw-edged, " said Emma. "We're getting on eachother's nerves. What we need is a vacation from each other. Thismorning I found myself on the verge of snapping at you. At you!Imagine, T. A. !"

Whereupon Buck came forward with his confession. 

"It's a couple of late cases of spring fever. You've been tied to thisoffice all winter. So've I. We need a change. You've had too muchpetticoats, too much husband, too much cutting room and sales-room andrush orders and business generally. Too much Featherloom and notenough foolishness. " He came over and put a gentle hand on his wife'sshoulder, a thing strictly against the rules during business hours. And Emma not only permitted it but reached over and covered his handwith her own. "You're tired, and you're a wee bit nervous; so g'wan, "said T. A. , ever so gently, and kissed his wife, "g'wan; get out ofhere!"

And Emma got. 

She went, not to the mountains or the seashore but with her face to thewest. In her trunks were tiny garments--garments pink-ribboned, blue-ribboned, things embroidered and scalloped and hemstitched andhand-made and lacy. She went looking less grandmotherly than ever inher smart, blue tailor suit, her rakish hat, her quietly correctgloves, and slim shoes and softly becoming jabot. Her husband had gother a compartment, had laden her down with books, magazines, fruit, flowers, candy. Five minutes before the train pulled out, Emma lookedabout the little room and sighed, even while she smiled. 

"You're an extravagant boy, T. A. I look as if I were equipped for adash to the pole instead of an eighteen-hour run to Chicago. But Ilove you for it. I suppose I ought to be ashamed to confess how I likehaving a whole compartment just for myself. You see, a compartmentalways will spell luxury to me. There were all those years on theroad, you know, when I often considered myself in luck to get an upperon a local of a branch line that threw you around in your berth like abean in a tin can every time the engineer stopped or started. "

Buck looked at his watch, then stooped in farewell. Quite suddenlythey did not want to part. They had grown curiously used to eachother, these two. Emma found herself clinging to this man with thetender eyes, and Buck held her close, regardless of train-schedules. Emma rushed him to the platform and watched him, wide-eyed, as he swungoff the slowly moving train. 

"Come on along!" she called, almost tearfully. 

Buck looked up at her. At her trim, erect figure, at her clearyouthful coloring, at the brightness of her eye. 

"If you want to get a reputation for comedy, " he laughed, "tellsomebody on that train that you're going to visit your granddaughter. "

Jock met her at the station in Chicago and drove her home in a verydapper and glittering black runabout. 

"Grace wanted to come down, " he explained, as they sped along, "butthey're changing the baby's food or something, and she didn't want toleave. You know those nurses. " Emma felt a curious little pang. Thiswas her boy, her baby, talking about his baby and nurses. She had asense of unreality. He turned to her with shining eyes. "That's astunning get-up, Blonde. Honestly, you're a wiz, mother. Grace has toldall her friends that you're coming, and their mothers are going tocall. But, good Lord, you look like my younger sister, on the squareyou do!"

The apartment reached, it seemed to Emma that she floated across thewalk and up the stairs, so eagerly did her heart cry out for a glimpseof this little being who was flesh of her flesh. Grace, a little palebut more beautiful than ever, met them at the door. Her arms wentabout Emma's neck. Then she stood her handsome mother-in-law off andgazed at her. 

"You wonder! How lovely you look! Good heavens, are they wearing thatkind of hat in New York! And those collars! I haven't seen a thinglike 'em here. 'East is east and West is west and----'"

"Where's that child?" demanded Emma McChesney Buck. "Where's my baby?"

"Sh-sh-sh-sh!" came in a sibilant duet from Grace and Jock. "Not now. She's sleeping. We were up with her for three hours last night. Itwas the new food. She's not used to it yet. "

"But, you foolish children, can't I peek at her?"

"Oh, dear, no!" said Grace hastily. "We never go into her room whenshe's asleep. This is your room, mother dear. And just as soon as shewakes up--this is your bath--you'll want to freshen up. Dear me; whocould have hung the baby's little shirt here? The nurse, I suppose. If I don't attend to every little thing----"

Emma took off her hat and smoothed her hair with light, deft fingers. She turned a smiling face toward Jock and Grace standing there in thedoorway. 

"Now don't bother, dear. If you knew how I love having that littleshirt to look at! And I've such things in my trunk! Wait till you seethem. "

So she possessed her soul in patience for one hour, two hours. At theend of the second hour, a little wail went up. Grace vanished down thehall. Emma, her heart beating very fast, followed her. A moment latershe was bending over a very pink morsel with very blue eyes and she wassaying, over and over in a rapture of delightful idiocy:

"Say hello to your gran-muzzer, yes her is! Say, hello, granny!" Andher longing arms reached down to take up her namesake. 

"Not now!" Grace said hastily. "We never play with her just beforefeeding-time. We find that it excites her, and that's bad for herdigestion. "

"Dear me!" marveled Emma. "I don't remember worrying about Jock'sdigestion when he was two and a half months old!"

It was thus that Emma McChesney Buck, for many years accustomed toleadership, learned to follow humbly and in silence. She had alwaysbeen the orbit about which her world revolved. Years of brilliantsuccess, of triumphant execution, had not spoiled her, or made heroffensively dictatorial. But they had taught her a certainself-confidence; had accustomed her to a degree of deference fromothers. Now she was the humblest of the satellites revolving aboutthis sun of the household. She learned to tiptoe when small EmmaMcChesney was sleeping. She learned that the modern mother does notapprove of the holding of a child in one's arms, no matter how thosearms might be aching to feel the frail weight of the soft, sweet body. She who had brought a child into the world, who had had to train thatchild alone, had raised him single-handed, had educated him, deniedherself for him, made a man of him, now found herself all ignorant oftwentieth century child-raising methods. She learned strange thingsabout barley-water and formulae and units and olive oil, and orangejuice and ounces and farina, and bath-thermometers and blue-and-whitestriped nurses who view grandmothers with a coldly disapproving andpitying eye. 

She watched the bathing-process for the first time with wonder as frankas it was unfeigned. 

"And I thought I was a modern woman!" she marveled. "When I used tobathe Jock I tested the temperature of the water with my elbow; and Iknow my mother used to test my bath-water when I was a baby by puttingme into it. She used to say that if I turned blue she knew the waterwas too cold, and if I turned red she knew it was too hot. "

"Humph!" snorted the blue-and-white striped nurse, and rightly. 

"Oh, I don't say that your method isn't the proper one, " Emma hastenedto say humbly, and watched Grace scrutinize the bath-thermometer withcritical eye. 

In the days that followed, there came calling the mothers of Grace'syoung-women friends, as Jock had predicted. Charming elderly women, most of them, all of them gracious and friendly with that generousfriendliness which is of the West. But each fell into one of twoclasses--the placid, black-silk, rather vague woman of middle age, whose face has the blank look of the sheltered woman and who wrinklesearly from sheer lack of sufficient activity or vital interest in life;and the wiry, well-dressed, assertive type who talked about her clubwork and her charities, her voice always taking the rising inflectionat the end of a sentence, as though addressing a meeting. When theymet Emma, it was always with a little startled look of surprise, followed by something that bordered on disapproval. Emma, the keenlyobservant, watching them, felt vaguely uncomfortable. She tried to bepolitely interested in what they had to say, but she found her thoughtsstraying a thousand miles away to the man whom she loved and who lovedher, to the big, busy factory with its humming machinery and itscapable office staff, to the tasteful, comfortable, spacious house thatshe had helped to plan; to all the vital absorbing, fascinating andconstructive interests with which her busy New York life was filled tooverflowing. 

So she looked smilingly at the plump, gray-haired ladies who camea-calling in their smart black with the softening lace-effect at thethroat, and they looked, smiling politely, too, at this slim, erect, pink-cheeked, bright-eyed woman with the shining golden hair and thefirm, smooth skin, and the alert manner; and in their eyes was thatdistrust which lurks in the eyes of a woman as she looks at anotherwoman of her own age who doesn't show it. 

In the weeks of her stay, Emma managed, little by little, to take theplace of second mother in the household. She had tact and finesse andcleverness enough even for that herculean feat. Grace's pale cheeks andlast year's wardrobe made her firm in her stand. 

"Grace, " she said, one day, "listen to me: I want you to get someclothes--a lot of them, and foolish ones, all of them. Babies are allvery well, but husbands have some slight right to consideration. Theclock, for you, is an instrument devised to cut up the day and nightinto your baby's eating- and sleeping-periods. I want you to get somefloppy hats with roses on 'em, and dresses with ruffles and sashes. I'll stay home and guard your child from vandals and ogres. Scat!"

Her stay lengthened to four weeks, five weeks, six. She had thesatisfaction of seeing the roses blooming in Grace's cheeks as well asin her hats. She learned to efface her own personality that othersmight shine who had a better right. And she lost some of her ownbright color, a measure of her own buoyancy. In the sixth week shesaw, in her mirror, something that caused her to lean forward, to starefor one intent moment, then to shrink back, wide-eyed. A littlesunburst, hair-fine but undeniable, was etched delicately about thecorners of her eyes. Fifteen minutes later, she had wired New Yorkthus:

 Home Friday. Do you still love me? EMMA. 

When she left, little Emma McChesney was sleeping, by a curiouscoincidence, as she had been when Emma arrived, so that she could nothave the satisfaction of a last pressure of the lips against therose-petal cheek. She had to content herself with listening close tothe door in the vain hope of catching a last sound of the child'sbreathing. 

She was laden with fruits and flowers and magazines on her departure, as she had been when she left New York. But, somehow, these things didnot seem to interest her. After the train had left Chicago's smokybuildings far behind, she sat very still for a long time, her eyesshut. She told herself that she felt and looked very old, very tired, very unlike the Emma McChesney Buck who had left New York a few weeksbefore. Then she thought of T. A. , and her eyes unclosed and shesmiled. By the time the train had reached Cleveland the little linesseemed miraculously to have disappeared, somehow, from about her eyes. When they left the One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street station she wasa creature transformed. And when the train rolled into the greatdown-town shed, Emma was herself again, bright-eyed, alert, vibratingenergy. 

There was no searching, no hesitation. Her eyes met his, and his eyesfound hers with a quite natural magnetism. 

"Oh, T. A. , my dear, my dear! I didn't know you were so handsome! Andhow beautiful New York is! Tell me: Have I grown old? Have I?"

T. A. Bundled her into a taxi and gazed at her in some alarm. 

"You! Old! What put that nonsense into your head? You're tired, dear. We'll go home, and you'll have a good rest, and a quietevening----"

"Rest!" echoed Emma, and sat up very straight, her cheeks pink. "Quietevening! T. A. Buck, listen to me. I've had nothing but rest andquiet evenings for six weeks. I feel a million years old. One moreday of being a grandmother and I should have died! Do you know what I'mgoing to do? I'm going to stop at Fifth Avenue this minute and buy ahat that's a thousand times too young for me, and you're going with meto tell me that it isn't. And then you'll take me somewhere todinner--a place with music and pink shades. And then I want to see awicked play, preferably with a runway through the center aisle for thechorus. 

And then I want to go somewhere and dance! Get that, dear? Dance!Tell me, T. A. --tell me the truth: Do you think I'm old, and faded, and wistful and grandmotherly?"

"I think, " said T. A. Buck, "that you're the most beautiful, the mostwonderful, the most adorable woman in the world, and the more foolishyour new hat is and the later we dance the better I'll like it. It hasbeen awful without you, Emma. "

Emma closed her eyes and there came from the depths of her heart agreat sigh of relief, and comfort and gratification. 

"Oh, T. A. , my dear, it's all very well to drown your identity in themusic of the orchestra, but there's nothing equal to the soul-fillingsatisfaction that you get in solo work. "