"I'll not go near your office," said Pearl, and she began again to stride about the room, occasionally stamping her right foot without losing step. "I shall never again go into any office where men are. I won't work for men. They're poor sports; they have no self----" "You said that before," said the treasurer. "----control," Pearl went on, for people in her frame of mind cannot be stopped. "Why shouldn't he go? But no, you have to be protected from a girl like a herd of sheep from a wolf--a girl who hasn't even looked at you, at that. If I had ever spoken to the man----" "Leave the room instantly, Miss Leavitt," said the president, and this time he spoke as if he meant it, for he was afraid the identity of the third vice president might be revealed. Little it mattered to Pearl what the old man meant. "I wouldn't mind so much," she went on, "if you did not all pretend to be so brave and strong--to protect women. You protect each other--that's who you protect." "Come, come," said a member of the board. "This isn't the way to keep a job, you know." "I don't want to keep this job. I want you for once to hear what a woman thinks of the men she works for--a lot of poor sports--and not industrious--none of you work the way girls work for you. Slack, that's what I call you, and lacking in self-control." And she went out as suddenly as she had come in, and slammed the door so hard behind that those members of the board, sitting near it ducked their heads into their collars in fear of falling glass. There was a minute's pause, and then the president said with a slight smile, "Well, Mr. Bunner, I think we all see what you meant when you said this young woman was a disturbing element in the office." "There has never been anything like this before," said Bunner; "never anything in the least like this anywhere I have ever been." "Well," said the treasurer, "I don't suppose we need distress ourselves about her finding another job." There was a certain wistful undercurrent in his tone. "No," said Bunner, slightly misunderstanding his meaning. "She is competent and industrious." "She ought to get married, a pretty girl like that--not go about making trouble in offices," said the president. "I have always been of the opinion," said the third vice president, "that it would be much simpler to run the office entirely with men." "Oh, it would be much better--much better, of course," said Bunner; "only women are so much more accurate about detail, more industrious and less expensive." And as there was no woman present to inquire why then men were so much more desirable, the question dropped, and the president recalled the board's attention to the subject of the paper to be used in their next edition--the topic under consideration when Pearl made her entrance. It was rather hard to take any interest in it now.