“Make it for thirty dollars, please,” said Darcy to the back. Mr. Riegel performed a reverse whirl so much more swiftly than his swivel-chair was prepared for that it was thrown off its balance, and its occupant, with a smothered yelp, beheld himself orbitally projected toward a line of open sample paints waiting on the floor for a test. Mr. Riegel’s own person was the last medium in the world upon which he desired to test them, for much stress had been laid upon their lasting quality. He was sprawling out, fairly above them, beyond human help, it seemed, when something happened. Darcy, standing in that attitude of unconscious but alert poise which rigid physical training inculcates, thrust forth a slender but powerful hand, caught the despairing Riegel, as it were in mid-flight, brought him up all standing, restored him to the chair and both of them to the _status quo_. “Urf!” gasped the victim of these maneuvers. He bent a look upon Darcy which was a curious blend of wonder, skepticism, and respect. “Say,” he said, “you couldn’t use a job in the trucking department, maybe?” Then, recovering himself, he growled: “What was that you said about thirty dollars?” The growl had no effect. Darcy’s confidence had been stiffened by the little interlude of the chair. “My prices have gone up,” she informed him. “The devil they have! Beg y’ pardon, Miss Watchemame—” “My name is Cole.” “Miss Cole. Look-a-here, now; d’ you think your work is worth ten dollars more than it has been?” “Put it this way; I think you’ve been paying me ten dollars too little. Don’t you?” At bottom Mr. Riegel was a fair-minded as well as a shrewd person. Moreover, he had been tremendously impressed by the unsuspected physical prowess of this queer specimen. To catch him in mid-flight and reëstablish his equilibrium had required no mean quality of muscle. Yet this sloppy-looking girl had done it without turning a hair! And now she was striking him for a raise. He laughed aloud. “That ain’t the point,” said he. “I don’t; but some of my competitors might. Lessay twenty-five for the next half-dozen: after that, thirty, and this one goes, as is.” “Right!” said Darcy, composedly. Exultant she went out into a dusk of wind and rain, such as would have swamped her spirit in misery aforetime, and fought her way joyously through it, ending her journey by taking the long flights of the apartment two steps at a time and singing as she sped. Outside the door she had noticed a taxi. In the front room she found Gloria, who had stopped on her way to the theater, stretched on the divan and talking with the turtledoves. “I looked in to see how you were getting on,” said the actress, eyeing Darcy keenly. “Splendidly!” “Everything all right in the gymnasium? Did Andy—er—” “Oh, yes. It’s all right,” hastily broke in the girl, having no mind to hear her felonies discussed by her flat-mates. “Just as right as right can be.”