During the last days of rushed work to help her successor find the way comparatively easy Mary kept Steve at arm's length. The same strange joy at having told him her secret and released the tension was being relived again in knowing that she was to leave the tangle with the Gorgeous Girl in command of it, and go live her commercial nun's existence in the offices of unromantic old graybeards who merely thought of her as a mighty clever woman who would not demand an assistant. Mary felt that she had truly passed her commercial novitiate; she made herself admit that a commercial life was hers for all time. She would leave a forbidden world of romance, watching Luke become a six-footer and an embryo inventor as her special pride and pleasure. It was good to have it settled, to have it a scar, pale and calm, throbbing only under extreme pressure. She even welcomed Beatrice's hurried visit to the office and met with gentle patience her half-veiled reproaches for leaving her husband's employ. "I can't see why you go," Beatrice protested, undecided whether it was because Steve and Mary had come to some understanding, as Trudy hinted, and it would be wiser for Mary to be removed from the everyday scene of action; or whether Mary had never thought of Steve except as a man who would not pay her such and such a salary and therefore, being tailor-made of heart as well as dress, she coolly picked up her pad and pencil and was walking off the lot. With the complacent conceit of all Gorgeous Girls who fancy that clothes can always conquer, Beatrice really inclined toward the latter theory. But being a woman she could not resist having a few pangs of unrest and trying out her fancied detective ability upon Mary. She brought her a farewell gift also--a veil case which had been given to Beatrice two summers ago. A fresh ribbon had made it quite all right, so she acted the Lady Bountiful as she presented her offering and listened carefully to Mary's sensible reply. "I can't go running off to Bermuda and Florida like you people can. I am forced to find my recreation in my work--and hides and razors are a queer combination for a woman who really likes gardens and sea bathing." She laughed so genuinely that Beatrice told herself that Trudy was an unpardonable little fool. "I have stayed at the post for some time, and now that I've the chance to change my recreation to fabrics--I'm tempted to try it. I'm sure you do understand--and it is with great regret that I leave the office."