Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/241

 make up, by his personal efforts, for the change in the office atmosphere. But he was irritable and moody and wholly unhappy, and each new assignment given to the "Little Tenderfoot" wrung his manly soul. Very early in their acquaintance he had laid his heart and hand at her feet, and she had declined both with gentle firmness and womanly appreciation of the honor he had offered her. He had never mentioned the matter again, but she had felt, until that eventful night, that he remained unchanged.

She was thinking it all over one afternoon, as he came to her desk in the city room.

"How much longer are you going to endure this?" he asked brusquely. "Do you realize that you 're taking rank on the paper with Miss Masters, who smokes and drinks, and is regarded as 'a good fellow' by the boys? Don't you see that your assignments are getting more and more objectionable all the time? Why don't you chuck it all?"

Miss Van Dyke turned her head wearily. "How can I?" she asked dismally. I 've got to make a living somehow. The way the men treat me is bad enough, but there's