Yes, Lydia would wait. She sat down on a hard bench and watched the work of the society go on before her eyes. She had some knowledge of business and finance, and she knew very soon that she was in the presence of an efficient organization; but it was not only the efficiency that charmed her--it was partly the mere business routine, which made her feel like coming home after she had been at sea. The clear impersonal purpose of it all promised forgetfulness of self. At the end of half an hour of waiting she was possessed with the desire to become part of this work. Here was the solution of her problem. When at last she was shown into Mrs. Galton's bleak little office--not half the size of Lydia's cell--her first words were not of Evans, after all. "Mrs. Galton," she said, "can you use me in this organization?" Without intending the smallest disrespect to Mrs. Galton, it must be admitted that this question was like asking a lion if it could use a lamb. The organization, like all others of its type, needed devotion, needed workers, needed money, and was not averse to a little discreet publicity. All these Lydia offered. Mrs. Galton smiled. "Yes," she said. The monosyllable was expressive. The older woman, with forty years of executive work behind her, divided all workers roughly into two classes: The amiable idealists who created no antagonism and accomplished nothing, and the effective workers who accomplished marvels and stirred up endless quarrels. She--except in her very weakest moments--preferred the latter, though they disrupted her office force and gave her nervous indigestion. She recognized Lydia as belonging to this class. And presently, being a wise and experienced woman, she recognized another fact: That she was probably in the presence of her successor. A pang shot through her. She was seventy and keener than ever about the work to which she had given all her life. If she kept this girl out she would hold office longer than if she let her in. If she let her in it would vivify the whole organization. She might become the ideal leader; at least she could be made so--youth, beauty, money, experience of prison conditions and the romance of her story to capture public imagination. Lydia, with her acute sense of her own unworthiness, was dimly aware of some hesitation, and supposed that she was being weighed in the balance. She had no suspicion that a struggle, somewhat like her own struggle, was going on in the honest, philanthropic breast before her. A few minutes afterwards Mrs. Galton offered her the treasurership. Lydia was overcome by the honor. "But I thought you had a treasurer, already," she murmured. "If I could be her assistant----" "Oh, no doubt she will be glad to resign," said the president with a calmness that suggested that glad or not the resignation would be forthcoming.