But at the elderly woman's insistence she walked back, unsteadily, to the wardrobe room for her hat and coat. "How dare you walk out the front way," raved the manager, as she was leaving with Mrs. Trubus. Mary did not hear him. The tears, a blessed relief, were coursing down her flower-white cheeks as the kindly woman steadied her arm. "Well! That suits me well enough," muttered Mr. Fleming philosophically, as he retired to his private office. "I lost a lot at poker last night--and here are two salaries for almost a full week that won't go into anyone's pockets but my own. First, last and always, a business man, say I." CHAPTER XIV CHARITY AND THE MULTITUDE OF SINS In the outer office of William Trubus an amiable little scene was being enacted, far different from the harrowing ones which had made up the last twelve hours for poor Mary. Miss Emerson, the telephone girl, was engaged in animated repartee with that financial genius of the "Mercantile Agency," with whose workings the reader may have a slight familiarity, located on the floor below of the same Fifth Avenue building. "Yes, dearie, during business hours I'm as hard as nails, but when I shut up my desk I'm just as good a fellow as the next one. All work and no play gathers no moss," remarked Mr. John Clemm. "You're a comical fellow, Mr. Clemm. I'd just love to go out to-night, as you suggest. And if you've got a gent acquaintance who is like you, I have the swellest little lady friend you ever seen. Her name is Clarice, and she is a manicure girl at the Astor. We might have a foursome, you know." "That's right, girlie," responded Clemm, as he ingratiatingly placed an arm about her wasp-like waist. "But two's company, and four's too much of a corporation for me." "Oh, Mr. Clemm--nix on this in here--Mr. Trubus is in his office, and he'll get wise...." As she spoke, not Mr. Trubus, but his estimable wife interrupted the progress of the courtship. She walked into the doorway, from the elevator corridor, holding Mary's arm. As she saw the lover-like attitude of the plump Mr. Clemm, she gasped, and then burst out in righteous indignation. "Why, you shameless girl, what do you mean by such actions in the office of the Purity League? I shall tell my husband at once!" Miss Emerson sprang away from the amorous entanglement with Mr. Clemm and tried to say something. She could think of nothing which befitted the occasion; all her glib eloquence was temporarily asphyxiated. Mr. Clemm stammered and looked about for some hole in which to conceal himself. He, too, seemed far different from the pugnacious, self-confident dictator who reigned supreme on the floor below. "William! William Trubus!" called the philanthropist's wife angrily. Her husband heard from within, and he opened the door with a thoroughly startled look.