"There!" said Mary Cutting, at last. She removed her glasses, snapped
them up on a little spring-chain near her shoulder, sat back, and
smiled upon Emma McChesney.

Emma McChesney smiled back at her. Theirs was not a talking
friendship. It was a thing of depth and understanding, like the
friendship between two men.

They sat looking into each other's eyes, and down beyond, where the
soul holds forth. And because what each saw there was beautiful and
sightly they were seized with a shyness such as two men feel when they
love each other, and so they awkwardly endeavored to cover up their
shyness with words.

"You could stand a facial and a decent scalp massage, Emma," observed
Mary Cutting in a tone pregnant with love and devotion. "Your hair
looks a little dry. Those small-town manicures don't know how to give
a real treatment."

"I'll have it to-morrow morning, before the Kid gets in at eleven. As
the Lily Russell of the traveling profession I can't afford to let my
beauty wane. That complexion of yours makes me mad, Mary. It goes
through a course of hard water and Chicago dirt and comes up looking
like a rose leaf with the morning dew on it. Where'll we have supper?"

"I know a new place," replied Mary Cutting. "German, but not greasy."

She was sorting, marking, and pigeonholing various papers and
envelopes. When her desk was quite tidy she shut and locked it, and
came over to Emma McChesney.