Emma McChesney's smile widened frankly to a grin.

"You make me feel like a cash-girl who's been caught flirting
with the elevator starter. Have I been neglecting business?"

"Business? No; you've been neglecting me!"

"Now, T. A., you've just come from the tailor's, and I suppose
it didn't fit in the back."

"It isn't that," interrupted Buck, "and you know it. Look
here! That day Jock went away and we came back to the office,
and you said----"

"I know I said it, T. A., but don't remind me of it. That
wasn't a fair test. I had just seen Jock leave me to take his
own place in the world. You know that my day began and ended
with him. He was my reason for everything. When I saw him off
for Chicago that day, and knew he was going there to stay, it
seemed a million miles from New York. I was blue and lonely and
heart-sick. If the office-boy had thrown a kind word to me I'd
have broken down and wept on his shoulder."

Buck, still standing, looked down between narrowed lids at his
business partner.

"Emma McChesney," he said steadily, "do you mean that?"

Mrs. McChesney, the straightforward, looked up, looked down,