The presence of the girl set his heart throbbing heavily, but he bit
his lip and restrained every untoward thought.

Only his arm tightened a little about that warmly clinging body.
Beatrice did not shrink from him. She needed his protection as never
since the world began had woman needed man.

To her it seemed that come what might, his strength and comfort could
not fail. And, despite everything, she could not--for the moment--find
unhappiness within her heart.

Quite vanished now, even in those brief minutes since their awakening,
was all consciousness of their former relationship--employer and
employed.

The self-contained, courteous, yet unapproachable engineer had
disappeared.

Now, through all the extraneous disguise of his outer self, there
lived and breathed just a man, a young man, thewed with the vigor of
his plentitude. All else had been swept clean away by this great
change.

The girl was different, too. Was this strong woman, eager-eyed and
brave, the quiet, low-voiced stenographer he remembered, busy only
with her machine, her file-boxes, and her carbon-copies? Stern dared
not realize the transmutation. He ventured hardly fringe it in his
thoughts.

To divert his wonderings and to ease a situation which oppressed him,