ELSPETH

sessions. She had far more things than her
mother, but she was utterly callous in the way
she helped herself to what she chose of her
mother's things, and even impudently justi-
fied this course, with one of the pretty, naughty
tosses of her head:

"Muzzie, what's yours is mine, and what's
mine’s my own,” she would say mischievously,
and receive either a kiss or a reproving shake
of the head, for Mrs. Maitland had a passion
for keeping her things neatly and in order,
and it was distracting to find all her possessions
tossed over and hidden about in this or that
drawer or lost. And so with men, or for that
matter, women. Elspeth would have squelched
any friendship of her mother's. “Muzzie”
belonged to her and to her solely, and she
didn't propose to share her with any other
living soul in the world. She wanted “muzzie"
to "mourn" a life time for that father whom
she had so rosily colored in her imagination.

“Quit! You! Thats a preposterous idea!"

“Even me!”

She was slightly smiling, and he noted that
her eyes looked very tired. It occurred to him
that she was not sleeping nights and he said
gruffly:

“You need a vacation. Don't wait till
August. Take it now.”

“I need a permanent vacation," she said
slowly. “I don't want to work any more.
I'm tired out."

“Can you afford to quit?"

He studied her keenly, and with some
anxiety. He knew little about her financial
status. Her salary was a good one, for work
of that sort. He would have liked to make
it much larger, but there were three other
partners in the concern, and they had to be
considered. Her home, he knew was a modest
one. Rent on that side of the city was low he
had heard, but even so, it must cost consider-
able to maintain the place, even in the slap
dash way in which “that girl” ran things.
Elspeth, by the way, was the housekeeper of
their peculiar menage. Furthermore, Elspeth
he felt sure, must cost her mother a pretty
penny for clothes and the thousand and one
things he suspected she demanded and got
from her mother. How, then, had it been
possible for‘ Mrs. Maitland to save enough
out of her salary on which to retire. She took
her time about replying to his query, as if she
weighed the question in’ her mind and hesi-
tated to reveal the meagreness of her resources
even to this man whom she knew so well.

“It's true I havn’t much.”
She gave him a small wry smile, that some-
how touched him:

' Twentyeight

Tl-IE QUILL

“One can’t save much on a Fairbanks-Ross
salary.” That was the name of the firm.

“Still, I've managed to keep up an endow-
ment policy, and now its about due. I can
go along on that for awhile at least.”

“I see. You know your own business. If
you feel that you can carry on with the
Insurance money. . .”

“Oh we could’nt live very high of course,
but we'd manage somehow.”

“Look here.”

Her employer was leaning across the desk.
He had grey curly hair and bushy eyebrows;
otherwise his face was almost young, and he
had a long lean body that stretched up like a
young athlete's when he rose from his chair.

“Look here! Whats the matter with you
and I. . . ."

“I know what you are going to say, but you

can stop right there. No. That's final.”
“You don't know what I'm going to say.”
“Yes, I do, because you've said it before.”
“Hmph! So I have, doggone it."

She laughed suddenly, and the pink glowed
in her cheeks. She stood up, and began pin-
ning on her hat. He blurted out angrily:

“I know I'm a tough old nut, but I4m square,
and you might do worse.”

“I know I might, and you're not tough. If
you say hard things about yourself, I'll be very
cross with you. I—I—-will say instead that
its been fine to work for you, and in a way
its been a compensation for other things-this
-——this fellowship and friendship. I don't want
anything else. It wouldn't do."

She held out her hand, which was first
sulkily ignored and then grasped in a rough,
strong hold.

“Good-b. . ." she began.

“None of that goodbye business now," he
growled. “You go on your holiday. I've
a hunch you'll be back soon. Your job and I
will be waiting for you, together or separately,
just as you say.”

“Thanks, thanks, very much.”

She wished that the warm clasp of that
strong hand over hers did not have such a
strange effect upon her. It was ridiculous that
her heart should be thumping like that. What-
ever in the world was the matter with her?
Why, she was almost as foolish as Elspeth.
Elspeth! At the thought of her girl, she with-
drew her hand, crimsoning under the strange
look of the man beside her.

“Well, goodbye, then," she said. '
“Not on your life, it's not goodbye.”