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 she said. "We shall have to wait till Sunday—unless I can meet you, some day, at lunch-time. I'll try."

She did not ask him about Margaret, nor did she mention Polk; and Don, with his faculty for self-deception, did not try to look below the smiling surface of her friendliness.

When the office had been closed for the night, he went with Pittsey to have dinner at the latter's hotel; but he went wondering how Margaret had spent the day and wishing that he could think of an excuse for escaping to her. He could not, in friendship, refuse to dine with Walter, but he was glad when Bert Pittsey joined them at table—his pocket full of newspapers and his head full of chatter—for his arrival relieved Don of the burden of conversation, and left him to his thoughts; and while he ate distractedly he went over in memory all the impressions of his busy day, and recalled Margaret, across the crowded interval of separation, as if he had not seen her for a month.

Bert, in his new position as "cub reporter," was doing what he called "leg work," and he had adventures to relate. He gave his account of them with his usual air of young deviltry. "Had an assignment this afternoon to root out a story of an old curb-market stock-sharp who was marrying a woman that owned a Sixth Avenue restaurant. They've been boarding in the same house. I couldn't see either of them, so I had to imagine them. I imagined him a Wall Street millionaire who had fallen in love with the beautiful waitress who used to feed him his lunch. It made a great story! The only trouble with reporting is that