And so the winter had worn on, and there was really nothing whatever
to tell about it.

She was quiet this morning, and kept her head bent low over her
work. For she had estimated the number of pages there were between W
and Z. Soon they would be at Z;--and then? Then? Shyly she turned
and looked at him; he too was bent over his work. When she came in
she had said something about its being spring, and that there must
be wild flowers in the woods. Since then he had not looked up.

Suddenly it came to her--tenderly, hotly, fearfully yet bravely,
that it was she who must meet Z. She looked at him again, covertly.
And she felt that she understood. It was the lines in his face made
it clearest. Years, and things blacker, less easily surmounted than
years--oh yes, that too she faced fearlessly--were piled in between.
She knew now that it was she--not he--who could push them aside.

It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love
and life and desire may crowd from the page.

Perhaps she would not have thrown it after all--the little note she
had written--had it not been that when she went over for more
copy-paper she stood for a minute looking out the window. Even on
Dearborn Street the seductiveness of spring was in the air. Spring,
and all that spring meant, filled her.

Because, way beyond the voice of Dr. Bunting she heard the songs of
far-away birds, and because beneath the rumble of a printing press
she could get the babble of a brook, because Z was near and life was
strong, the woman vanquished the girl, and she threw this over to