What Mr. Sable had counted on was that Gage, once away for the Convention, with his wife travelling with him, would stay away for a week or so. In any case, he had taken matters rather summarily into his own hands in the case of Freda Thorstad. The presence of the girl in the office was to him like an open scandal. He knew that she had to get out of the office and the time to get her out was while Gage was away. Of course Flandon might raise trouble when he came back but there would be no scene with the girl and he could put it flatly and finally that amours had to be conducted outside of the office if at all. He was extremely correct and secure in his own position and he felt he was most delicate. So he was at the office a little earlier than usual the morning after Gage left for the Convention. Freda was at her desk sorting the first batch of mail. She looked very neat and capable, in her white blouse open a little at the throat, her thick golden red hair pulled back smoothly from her forehead, and her head industriously bent over her letters. “Will you come in my office for a moment, Miss Thorstad?” Freda followed him obediently. He closed the door and, taking his arm chair, left her standing a little dubiously before him. “Miss Thorstad,” he said, “I think--er--that it will be best for you to sever your connection with this office.” His tone, wholly disapproving, weighted with meaning, told his reasons with almost comic flatness. Freda’s brow contracted and she looked sharply at him. Then she laughed. A brazen laugh, he would have said. Truly a laugh with no more fear or care or apprehension in it than the laugh of any child who comes upon something ridiculous. Mr. Sable frowned. She was a hussy, he thought. Might try to bulldoze him a little--he became increasingly stern. “I have no desire to go into our reasons for this but I think it will be best for you to simply leave at once. You may find the work too heavy for you. I am sure you understand that no office of this kind could take the situation differently.” “Wouldn’t it be better for me to wait until Mr. Flandon’s return?” she asked. He had feared that. “Surely you understand that your presence here is embarrassing to Mr. Flandon,” he said sharply. If she had guessed what he suspected she might have contended. But all that he said struck her as true. She evidently was being gossiped about and if it did make it embarrassing for Mr. Flandon--Perhaps that was why he had been so over courteous, to conceal a deep embarrassment. “Very well, Mr. Sable,”--she straightened her shoulders a little--“I shall not go on with my work here.” “Exactly.” With victory so easily accomplished, Mr. Sable became different, adept at smoothing things over. “Of course when a young lady cannot typewrite, an office like this has hardly the right kind of work--” “I know that. I told Mr. Flandon that at the start.” “Mr. Flandon being absent, I will give you a check for this week’s work.”