"He's just exactly the same as ever, only more so, if anything," she complained to her mother. "He dictated his letters, then for an hour, I think, he just sat at his desk doing nothing, with his hand shielding his eyes. Twice, though, I caught him looking at me. But his eyes weren't kind and--and human, as they were yesterday. They were their usual little bits of cold steel. He went off then to his office at the Works (he said he was going there), and he never came home even to luncheon. I didn't have half work enough to do, and--and the cabinets were locked. I tried them. At four he came in, signed the letters, said good-afternoon and stalked upstairs. And that's the last I saw of him." Nightly, after this, for a time, Betty gave forth what she called the "latest bulletin concerning the patient":-- "No change." "Sat up and took notice." "Slight rise in temper." "Dull and listless." Such were her reports. Then came the day when she impressively announced that the patient showed really marked improvement. He asked her to pass not only the salt and the pepper, but the olives. "And, indeed, when you come to think of it," she went on with mock gravity, "there's mighty little else he can ask me to pass, in the way of making voluntary conversation; for Benton and Sarah do everything almost, except lift the individual mouthfuls for our consumption." "Oh, Betty, Betty!" protested her mother. "Yes, yes, I know--that was dreadful, wasn't it, dearie?" laughed Betty contritely. "But you see I have to be so still and proper up there that home becomes a regular safety-valve; and you know safety-valves are necessary--absolutely necessary." Helen, gazing with fond, meditative eyes at the girl's bright face, drew a tremulous sigh. "Yes, I know, dear; but, you see, I'm so--afraid." "You shouldn't be--not with a safety-valve," retorted Betty. "But, really," she added, turning back laughingly, "there is one funny thing: he never stays around now when there's any chance of his seeing me with my hat on again. I've noticed it. Every single night since that time he did see me a week ago, he's bade me his stiff good-afternoon and gone upstairs _before_ I'm ready to leave." "Betty, really?" cried Helen so eagerly that Betty wheeled and faced her with a mischievous laugh. "Who's interested _now_ in Mr. Burke Denby's love-story?" she challenged. But her mother, her hands to her ears, had fled. It was the very next afternoon that Betty came home so wildly excited that not for a full five minutes could her startled mother obtain anything like a lucid story of the day. Then it came.