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308 about him was not the whole reason for her drawing back. He was not drunk; he was quite himself so far as any influence of that kind was concerned. Long ago, when he was a young man on the boats, he had drunk a good deal; he had confessed to her once; but he had not done so for years. Since she had known him, he had been among the most careful of her friends; it was for "efficiency" he had said. The drink was simply a part—indeed, only a small part—of the subtle strangeness and peculiarity she marked in him. If he had been drinking now, it was, she knew, no temptation, no capricious return to an old appetite. If not appetite, then it was for the effect—to brace himself. Against what? Against the thing for which he had prepared himself when she came upon him?

As she stared at him, the clerk's voice came to her suddenly over the partition which separated the office from the larger room where the clerk was receiving some message over the telephone. Henry straightened, listened; as the voice stopped, his great, finely shaped head sank between his shoulders; he fumbled in his pocket for a cigar, and his big hands shook as he lighted it, without word of excuse to her. A strange feeling came to her that he felt what he dreaded approaching and was no longer conscious of her presence.

She heard footsteps in the larger room coming toward the office door. Henry was in suspense. A rap came at the door. He whitened and took the cigar from his mouth and wet his lips.

"Come in," he summoned.

One of the office girls entered, bringing a white page of paper with three or four lines of purple typewriting