She rose, and, going over to the window, stood looking out at the
streaming rain in one of those empty silences which at first had been so
alluringly mysterious to him. She was waiting for his hand on her
shoulder, his kiss on her hair--but he was immersed in his paper. "How
can he be interested about football, _now_, when we're alone?" she
thought, wistfully. Then, to remind him of lovelier things, she began to
sing, very softly:

"Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
0 sweet content!
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers,
O sweet content!--0 sweet, O sweet content--"

He dropped his paper and listened--and it seemed as if music made itself
visible in his ardent, sensitive face! After a while he got up and went
over to the window, and kissed her gently ...

Maurice was very happy in these first months in Mercer. The Weston
office liked him--and admired him, also, which pleased his young
vanity!--though he was jeered at for an incorrigible and alarming
truthfulness which pointed out disadvantages to possible clients, but
which--to the amazement of the office--frequently made a sale! As a
result he acquired, after a while, several small gilt hatchets,
presented by the "boys," and also the nickname of "G. Washington." He
accepted these tributes with roars of laughter, but pointed to results:
"_I get the goods!_" So, naturally, he liked his work--he liked it very
much! The joy of bargaining and his quick and perhaps dangerously frank
interest in clients as personalities, made him a most beguiling
salesman; as a result he became, in an astonishingly short time, a real
force in the office; all of which hurried him into maturity. But the