"No. For you, yes, but I'm still paying. Paying at this moment with my--my heart's blood. But if I hadn't done it--gone with you--something would have been lost that night that was worth every cent I paid. They'd have got her back. I don't care. I've won. I've won if I've lost." She was on her feet now, her eyes, like blue wells that were filling with ink, plunging beyond his with a Testament defiance that seemed to shout, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." "Yes, I love him. You can't take that from me. That is why he is so safe from me. I love him too much for him to know. And yet I think--I believe--I know that even if he did know, in the end it wouldn't matter--" "You must be crazy. Once let your idealist wake up and there is no more dreaming for him." "He mustn't ever wake up--for his sake! Promise. Promise me that you won't ever wake him!" "Whether I do or not is up to you." "What do you want?" she said, tiredly. "I suppose the black and white of it is that you must quit." "That is easy. I'm resigning anyway the fifteenth of September to go West to live." He took on the half-conciliatory graciousness of one who has gained his advantage with unsuspected ease. "I'd give a great deal not to have had this happen, but, after all, a man is a man and life is life." She let her gaze bore into his like gimlets burning for center. "I think you've explained that before." He began to back out before her immobility. "I am remaining East two months. I hope your resignation will allow us that much time to attempt to fill your place." "I leave that to you. It can be either immediate or take effect in September." "By all means the latter. Will you--can you believe me when I say if there is anything I can do--letters--an opening with a Western firm--" "Please," she said, turning him a shoulder in high distaste. "I have your word--then?" "My word," she said, looking past his hand toward the door. He backed out in the somewhat ludicrous crab fashion and then she sat down, swinging around on her swivel chair toward the desk. The stack of reports lay facing her. She caught up the next in order. People's Playhouse. Tulsa, Oklahoma. For the next half hour she must have sat there trying to co-ordinate out of chaos by staring at the heading and repeating over and over again: "_People's Playhouse. Tulsa, Oklahoma. People's Playhouse. Tulsa, Oklahoma._" * * * * * Whistles were blasting through the noonday fog when Bruce finally and without preamble burst into her office. It struck her even on the gale of his entrance how young he was that his hair should show the nervous plowing of five fingers, and how sensitive his profile and ready to flare at the nostrils. His tie, too, burnt orange, from a soft collar and badly knotted! She wanted to jerk up his chin and putter at remaking the four-in-hand. "Lilly--sweetheart--" She sat regarding him over the top of People's Playhouse, Tulsa, Oklahoma.