She was mistaken; Mr. Bigelow was interested. Indeed, he was beginning to recover himself and to look down on the ill-dressed woman before him from the proper altitude of G. Hyde Bigelow. As he looked down he told himself that he was quite calm, that he was standing frankly and firmly, as became him, on his proper footing as a prominent citizen. And such a sight as this, an ill-dressed woman standing in this mahogany office and talking about starvation, was really shocking. He felt that he must dismiss her, must rid himself of her; but on the other hand he was really touched by her distress. Mr. Bigelow leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes. “How long has this been going on?” he asked, in a voice that showed signs of leading up to something further. She gave him a puzzled, indignant flash of her eyes and replied in the same low voice: “It is more than fourteen years.” More than fourteen years--think of it! For fourteen years this woman had been suffering for an error of judgment, the mistake of two deluded years, the mistake of giving her life to the wrong man, and now had even faced starvation because of it. So mistakes are punished in this world. Mr. Bigelow, on his part, looking down from his great altitude, was running over these fourteen years and recalling the mistakes of his own that had brought this annoying visit upon him. He had been soft-hearted; he saw it plainly enough now. In his effort to do right, to comply voluntarily with certain nominal requirements which a less honourable man would have easily evaded; in his effort to be kind to a foolish young woman--and a very young woman indeed she had been at first--to humour her childish notions of the facts of this real world--his impulses had carried him too far, and she, of course, had taken advantage of him. He should have known better. “Hum! More than fourteen years,” he repeated, still sitting in his chair and looking dreamily at a group picture of a certain Board of Directors that hung above his desk. “Has it ever occurred to you to stop and figure up how much you have cost me during these years--how many times I have sent you large sums without a word? If you will think of it now you will remember that I have asked no questions--that I have known nothing whatever about your life and your acquaintances. I have not known how real your needs were.” He might have gone on to much plainer speaking, even to harshness (it being necessary sometimes in dealing with such people), had not his half-shut eyes strayed downward from the Board of Directors to her face. What he saw there seemed to weaken his self-possession. And, for another thing, it was certainly getting time for his stenographer to be returning with the Pine Lands correspondence. It was really a rather awkward moment for Mr. Bigelow. “Well,” he said abruptly, opening his eyes again, “there is no use in prolonging this conversation. Tell me what you have come here for and be done with it.”