"You can’t make me believe that. If you were all kinds of a traitor, you wouldn’t be such a jolly companion to work with or to talk to. Do you know the most delightful thing about you, Robert?" "Modesty forbids me to say—but not to hear. Tell me." "It is the fact that you can behave towards a woman friend as frankly and decently and unsentimentally as you would towards a man friend. You can’t imagine what a relief it is to a girl to know one man who’ll always treat her man-to-man fashion." "Will I? Janet, if you were perfectly sure of my future conduct you’d find me an insufferable bore. Besides, no fascinating woman ever wanted to be treated like a man—at least not for long at a time. You won’t be the first exception." "Don’t be silly, Robert. If ever I should get married—which Heaven forbid!—it will be to a man like you, one who can work with me without constantly remembering my sex." "Oh almost any man will be able to do that, as soon as being your husband loses its novelty for him. Still, I’m grateful to you for your well-meant opinion, Janet. I shall try to deserve it by offering you a small business partnership." He rapidly sketched the plan he had in mind, pointing out that, as only her mornings were engaged by the playwright, Grey, she might help him afternoons with the Guild League’s work. He was hard pressed for assistance; the League could just afford a part-time worker; there was a good deal of editing and typewriting which he was sure she could undertake. Janet begged to be taken on trial. The bargain was struck amid the sounds of merrymaking that came, none too faintly, through the walls of flat Number Fifteen. She remarked that Cornelia’s party appeared to have been a huge success after all. "Yes, it has given birth to the firm of Barr and Lloyd," said Robert, jestingly. He was aware of the conflict in Janet between the temptations of the love chase and the attraction of the force that moves the sun and the stars. And he fondly believed that this conflict no longer existed in himself. The love of man for woman against the love of life! He had made his decision, she had not. Two questions remained uppermost in his mind. One was: "Could he capture Janet’s great natural talents for his own side, the side, not of the fires of sensuous gratification but of the flame that burns at the heart of the world?" The other was: "Did Janet really want him to act towards her precisely as towards a man?" Curiously enough, the irrelevance of the second question to the first, did not strike him. *CHAPTER SIXTEEN* *I* In the days that followed, Janet’s morning duty as Mr. Grey’s secretary and her afternoon employment as assistant to Robert left her with very little leisure. Such time as remained on her hands she spent chiefly with Cornelia or with Claude.