He saw her in a minute and showed no surprise. Instead he seemed to be anxious to cover up any ambiguity in the position by making it very clear what her duties were to be. He introduced her to the rest of the office force as my “personal secretary” at which the Miss Brewster who held a like position in Mr. Sable’s employ lifted her eyebrows a little. She was given a desk in a little ante-room outside of Gage’s own office and Gage, with a stenographer who had done most of his work, went over her duties. She was to relieve the stenographer of all the sorting of his correspondence, take all his telephone messages, familiarize herself with all of his affairs and interests in so far as she could do so by consulting current files and be ready to relieve him of any routine business she could, correcting and signing his letters as soon as possible. At five o’clock she hurried back to her little room to find a letter in her mail box. It was from her father and at the sight of it she was saddened by the sense of separation between them. Every word in it, counsel, affection, humor breathed his love and thought for her. She was still poring over it when Gregory came to take her to dinner, and forgot to be embarrassed about the night before. Gregory had never intended to be embarrassed evidently. He considered that they were on a footing of delightful intimacy. His voice had more exuberance in it to-night than she had previously heard. As they went past Margaret’s door they looked up at her transom. It was dark. “I hoped she was coming with us,” said Freda. “She doesn’t want to come with me,” answered Gregory, “and that has hurt me for a long time, it seems to me, although perhaps it is only weeks. But it may be just as well. For I could never make her happy.” “Would it be so hard?” “I could never make any woman happy,” said Gregory with extraordinary violence. “Happiness is a state of sloth. But I could live through ecstasy and through pain with some one who was not afraid. For this serene stagnancy which seems to be the end-all of most people, I’m no good. I couldn’t do it, that’s all.” His head was in the air and he looked, thought Freda, as if he would be extremely likely to forget about any woman or anything else and go sailing off in some fantasy of his own, at any time. She remembered him as he had been, despondent, when she had first met him, last night full of blazing enthusiasms, to-night blithely independent. It delighted her. She had never before met a person who adjusted to no routine. “Let’s walk in peace and watch the clouds and I’ll tell you what an old Irish poet said of them.” He could see her chin lift as she listened. “To have in your mind such a wealth of beauty--what it must mean--to feel that things do not starve within you for lack of utterance--” Her voice was blurred into appreciations. “Why let them starve?” asked Gregory.