“But hasn’t Miss Duffield plans for you?” “I hoped she might have. But she’s busy, as you see.” His tone had many implications. “So I really am lonely and you made me feel warm and welcome to-night. You aren’t full of foolish ideas about friendships that progress like flights of stairs--step by step, are you?” “Friendships are--or they aren’t,” said Freda. “And this one is, I hope?” They heard a sigh within the apartment as if a weary soul on the other side of the partition were at the end of its patience. Gregory held out his hand and turned to go. But Freda could not let him go. She was swept by a sense of the cruel loneliness of this strange beautiful soul, in a country he did not know, pursuing a woman he did not win. She felt unbearably pent up. Catching his hand in both of hers, she held it against her breast, lifted her face to his and suddenly surprisingly kissed him. And, turning, she marched into her room with her cheeks aflame and her head held high. Groping for the unfamiliar switch she turned on her light and began mechanically to undress. It seemed to her that she was walking in one of her own storied imaginings. So many things had happened in the last twenty-four hours which she had often dreamed would happen to her. Adventures, romantic moments, meetings of strange intimate congeniality like this with Gregory Macmillan. She thought of him as Gregory. Gregory went down the stairs quickly, pausing at Margaret’s door to say good night. The other man was leaving too and they walked together as far as Gregory’s hotel. They were a little constrained and kept their conversation on the most general of subjects. Gregory was absent minded in his comments but as he entered the hotel lobby he was smiling a little, the immensely cheered smile of the person who has found what he thought was lost. Freda reported for work at the office of Sable and Flandon at half past eight the next morning. She had not been sure at what time a lawyer’s office began operations and thought it best to be early so she had to wait a full hour before Mr. Flandon came in. The offices were a large, well-furnished suite of rooms. There were three young lawyers in the office, associated with Mr. Sable and Mr. Flandon, and three stenographers, in addition to a young woman, with an air of attainment, who had a desk in Mr. Sable’s office and was known as Mr. Sable’s personal secretary. Freda got some idea of the organization, watching the girls come in and take up their work. She became a little dubious as to where she could fit into this extremely well-oiled machinery and wondering more and more as to the quixotic whim which had made Mr. Flandon employ her, was almost ready to get up and go out when Gage came in.