The hand holding the glass dropped to her lap. She sat still for a moment, then without turning told him to go; she was tired and wanted to get home. It did not even strike him as odd that she never looked at him, just flapped a hand over her shoulder and dismissed him with a short "Good-night." When he had gone she sat as he had left her, the mirror still in her lap. The gas jet flamed in its wire cage, and so silent was the room that a mouse crept out from behind the baseboard, spied about, then made a scurrying dart across the floor. Her eye caught it, slid after it, and she moved, putting the glass carefully on the dresser. The palms of her hands were wet with perspiration and she rubbed them on the skirt of her kimono and rose stiffly, resting for a moment against the back of her chair. She had a sick feeling, a sensation as if her heart were dissolving, as if the room looked unfamiliar and much larger than usual. When she put on her clothes she did it slowly, her fingers fumbling stupidly at buttons and hooks, her mouth a little open as if breathing was difficult. CHAPTER XX MARK PAYS A CALL Mark Burrage saw the winter pass and only went once to the Alstons and then they were not at home. He had refused three invitations to the house and after the ignominous event at the Albion received no more. When he allowed himself to think of that humiliating evening he did not wonder. But, outside of his work, he allowed himself very little thinking. All winter he had concentrated on his job with ferocious energy. The older men in the office had a noticing eye on him. "That fellow Burrage has got the right stuff in him, he'll make good," they said among themselves. The younger ones, sons of rich fathers who had squeezed them into places in the big firm, regarded his efforts with indulgent surprise. They liked him, called him "Old Mark," and were a little patronizing in their friendliness: "He was just the sort who'd be a grind. Those ranch chaps who had to get up at four in the morning and feed the 'horgs' were the devil to work when they came down to the city. Even law was a cinch after the 'horgs.'" Sometimes at night--his endeavor relaxed for a pondering moment--he studied the future. The outlook might have daunted a less resolute spirit. A great gap yawned between the present and the time when he could go to Lorry Alston and say, "Let me take care of you; I can do it now." But he figured it out, bridged the gap, knew what one man had done another man could do. He reckoned on leaving the office next year and setting up for himself, and grim-visaged, mouth set to a straight line, he calculated on the chances of the fight. Its difficulties braced him to new zeal and in the strain and stress of the struggle his youthful awkwardness wore away, giving place to a youthful sternness.