His hand fell on hers. It comforted her chilly hand. She let it lie there. Speech became difficult for her. "Why, why yes--" she stammered. In reaction to her scorn of him, she was all accepting faith. "Oh, if you could--and if I could make you less lonely sometimes--" In his voice was a perilous tenderness; for the rat, trained to beguile neurotic patients in his absurd practice, could croon like the very mother of pity. "Yes, I am lonely sometimes," she heard herself admitting--far-off, dreaming, needing the close affection that her mother and Walter had once given her. "Poor little girl--you're so much better raised and educated than me, but you got to have friendship jus' same." His arm was about her shoulder. For a second she leaned against him. All her scorn of him suddenly gathered in one impulse. She sprang up--just in time to catch a grin on his face. "You gutter-rat!" she said. "You aren't worth my telling you what you are. You wouldn't understand. You can't see anything but the gutter." He was perfectly unperturbed: "Poor stuff, kid. Weak come-back. Sounds like a drayma. But, say, listen, honest, kid, you got me wrong. What's the harm in a little hugging--" She fled. She was safe in her room. She stood with both arms outstretched. She did not feel soiled by this dirty thing. She was triumphant. In the silhouette of a water-tank, atop the next-door apartment-house, she saw a strong tower of faith. "Now I don't have to worry about him. I don't have to make any more decisions. I know! I'm through! No one can get me just because of curiosity about sex again. I'm free. I can fight my way through in business and still keep clean. I can! I was hungry for--for even that rat. I--Una Golden! Yes, I was. But I don't want to go back to him. I've won! "Oh, Walter, Walter, I do want you, dear, but I'll get along without you, and I'll keep a little sacred image of you." CHAPTER X The three-fourths of Una employed in the office of Mr. Troy Wilkins was going through one of those periods of unchanging routine when all past drama seems unreal, when nothing novel happens nor apparently ever will happen--such a time of dull peacefulness as makes up the major part of our lives. Her only definite impressions were the details of daily work, the physical aspects of the office, and the presence of the "Boss." § 2 Day after day the same details of the job: letters arriving, assorted, opened, answered by dictation, the answers sealed and stamped (and almost every day the same panting crisis of getting off some cosmically important letter).... The reception of callers; welcome to clients; considerate but firm assurances to persons looking for positions that there was "no opening just at _present_--" The suave answering of irritating telephone calls.... The filing of letters and plans; the clipping of real-estate-transfer items from newspapers.... The supervision of Bessie Kraker and the office-boy.