He knew that he was being groomed to succeed his father. It might be a bright future for a young man, but as a human being it held no brighter prospect than escaping from this cage and sitting where his father sat now, fat and sedentary in all his habits. He was restless. He was red-headed. He was an athlete on the university team. There had been some question about whether he should take his final year. He would let the “old man” know that he was willing and anxious to go back to the university in the fall. He was not ready to be imprisoned for life with dollars, not yet! At this moment the street door, that had admitted everybody all day from the leading merchants, workers, widows, all the way down to the fat woman who kept the fruit stand, opened again. A young girl came in. It was as if spring and snow and sweetness had entered. There was so much whiteness and coolness in the presence she made. A mere hint of far-off blue skies, and as if Nature had granted her the flowers she wore on this hat. She passed the teller’s window, also the cashier’s window. She looked neither to the right nor the left. The white scallop in the pink upper lip was pressed primly, holding it, like a word she would not say, upon the round pink under lip. She came directly to the bookkeeper’s window, faced it, stared at him and waited. When she entered he had made three steps backward, which brought him to the wall behind him. He was conscious of being without his coat. But if you are a man in a bank you are not supposed to scamper out of sight like a lady in negligee, if some one comes to call. You stood your ground with dignity, no matter how you looked. He stood his; he did not move a muscle. He may have breathed, but if so it was no more than a secret breath merely to sustain life. Their eyes met; his filled with the fire of an amazement, hers calm and speechless. She regarded him as one regards a picture on the wall. This was all that happened, lasting no longer than the instant of time required for the bookkeeper to look up, see her and slide himself with one step like a little, thin-necked, bald-headed, stooped-shouldered fact before the window, blotting out the vision of her. Young Cutter heard her murmur something, saw the bookkeeper draw a pass book from a stack of these dingy records and slide it beneath the wicket of the window. He heard her say “thank you” in a faint, soft, bell-like voice. Then she turned and went out. He stared about him. How was this? He expected a wave of excitement to mark her passing, as people exclaim at the sight of something ineffable. Had no one seen her but himself? Apparently not. Every man in there was working with his usual air of absorption. For another instant he stood free, exalted, his eyes filled with the explosive brightness of a great emotion. Then it faded into self-consciousness, a downward look as he sneaked back to his machine, hoping that he had not been observed.