"Let's see it," said Nance in giggling derision. "Looks like a baby's eyebrow. Does it wash off?" A step in the hall sent them flying in opposite directions, Nance back to her desk, and Mac into the inner office, where his father found him a moment later, apparently absorbed in a pamphlet on factory inspection. When Nance started home at six o'clock, she found Dan waiting at his old post beside the gas-pipe. "It's like old times," he said happily, as he piloted her through the out-pouring throng. "I remember the first night we walked home together. You weren't much more than a kid. You had on a red cap with a tassel to it. Three years ago the tenth of last May. Wouldn't think it, would you?" "Think what?" she asked absently. "Tired?" he asked anxiously. "Is the work going to be too heavy?" She shook her head impatiently. "No, the work's all right. But--but I wish you hadn't made me come back, Dan." "Stick it out for a week," he urged, "and then if you want to stop, I won't say a word." She looked up at him quizzically and gave a short enigmatic laugh. "That's my trouble," she said, "if I stick it out for a week, I won't be wanting to quit!" CHAPTER XXV MAC Nance's prophecy regarding herself was more than fulfilled. Whatever scruples had assailed her at the start were soon overthrown by the on-rushing course of events. That first month in Mr. Clarke's office proved to be a time of delightful madness. There were daily meetings with Mac at the noon hour, stolen chats on street corners, thrilling suppers with him and Monte at queer cafes, and rides after dark in that wonderful racer that proved the most enticing of playthings. Dan was as busy as Mac was idle; Mr. Clarke was gloomy and preoccupied; Mrs. Snawdor was in bed when Nance left home in the morning, and gone to work when she returned in the evening. The days flashed by in a glorious succession of forbidden joys, with nobody to interrupt the furious progress of affairs. Half of her salary Nance gave to her stepmother, and the other half she spent on clothes. She bought with taste and discrimination, measuring everything by the standard set up by her old idol, Miss Stanley at Forest Home. The result was that she soon began to look very much like the well-dressed women with whom she touched elbows on the avenue. She had indeed got the bit between her teeth, and she ran at full tilt, secure in the belief that she had full control of the situation. As long as she gave satisfaction in her work, she told herself, and "behaved right," she could go and come as she liked, and nobody would be the worse for it.