Still she hesitated.

"Let me decide it for you," he insisted, "will you, Nance?"

She looked up into his earnest eyes, steadfast and serious as a collie's.

"All right!" she said recklessly, "have it your own way!"

The first day in Mr. Clarke's office was one of high tension. Added to
the trepidation of putting her newly acquired business knowledge to a
practical test, was the much more disturbing possibility that at any
moment Mac might happen upon the scene. Just what she was going to do and
say in such a contingency she did not know. Once when she heard the door
open cautiously, she was afraid to lift her eyes. When she did, surprise
took the place of fear.

"Why, Mrs. Smelts!" she cried. "What on earth are you doing here?"

Birdie's mother, faded and anxious, and looking unfamiliar in bonnet and
cape, was evidently embarrassed by Nance's unexpected presence.

"He sent for me," she said, nervously, twitching at the fringe on her
cape. "I wrote to his wife, but he sent word fer me to come here an' see
him at ten o'clock. Is it ten yet?"

"Mr. Clarke sent for _you_?" Nance began incredulously; then remembering
that a stenographer's first business is to attend to her own, she crossed
the room with quite a professional manner and tapped lightly on the door
of the inner office.