Annie lifted her face with a laugh which stirred him strangely. Her eyes rested questioningly upon him and he was conscious of an ambiguous emotion of pleasure and confusion. He had a desire to say tender words to her, to touch her hair; none the less he sighed heavily. And Annie all at once took his attitude for granted. Timid, yet with that potency of appeal which belongs often to the weakest women, she clasped his hand, glancing up at him in such a way that he felt all resistance expiring within him. "That poor fellow over there," she went on happily after a moment, during which she pressed his fingers once or twice, "every time I'd go to the factory, he'd make the strangest signs, and at first I couldn't understand what he wanted. But after a little, I made out that he was asking about you. And when Father got in that new man to work on your machine, Ding Dong, as they call him, just went wild and raged. He tried to stand guard over the machine and he locked the door of your shop. But finally they got in and he acted so, they had to get rid of him." Emil, who had been admiring the vivacity of her face, caught only the last words of this speech. "Ding Dong you say! Yes, a fine fellow," he agreed with a sparkling smile. "Well, between us we've got everything planned," Annie continued. "We've found a little apartment--" He started. "Where you can work and invent," she added in a voice scarcely above a whisper. "Invent," he murmured, for she sidled and slunk closer to him so that with difficulty he resisted an impulse to seize her to his breast. Explain it who can: in one short hour all the judgments of this man were reversed. Though he was influenced by selfish motives, he did not recognize them. Annie was his friend, the one most necessary to him and to whom he was necessary. It was really downright amazing how much she cared for him, and seeing her through a mist of gratitude which he mistook for love, he compared her to the cold Rachel to the latter's disadvantage. In love consciously with neither the one nor the other of these two women and only obscurely aware that his feeling for Rachel was capable of assuming the character of a dominating passion, he was really concerned in but one object, his work. He therefore yielded himself readily to gratified vanity, egotism, enthralled senses, those potent agents for the smothering of the masculine will. They were on their way to the office of the Mayor when abruptly Emil ordered the driver of the cab to halt, while he questioned Annie anxiously. Did she think it wise--what they were doing? Had she sufficiently considered? For answer she put her hands on his shoulders and drew his head to her breast so vehemently that he had difficulty in breathing. After that he spoke no more until their destination was reached, but stared out intently at the people, who passed in carriages and on foot, with a smile in which there was an uneasy melancholy.