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“–all copy for the Sans Scent Soap is now ready for your approval and will be mailed to you to-day under separate cover. We in the office think that this copy marks a new record in soap advertising–“

(Over there! Over there! Send the word, send the word over there!)

“Just read that last line will you, Miss Dugan?”

“Over th–I mean, ‘We in the office think that this copy marks a new record in soap advertising–‘”

“H’m. Yes.” A moment’s pause. A dreamy look on the face of the girl stenographer. Jock interpreted it. He knew that the stenographer was in the chair at the side of his desk, taking his dictation accurately and swiftly, while the spirit of the girl herself was far and away at Camp Grant at Rockford, Illinois, with an olive-drab unit in an olive-drab world.

“–and, in fact, in advertising copy of any description that has been sent out from the Raynor offices.”

The girl’s pencil flew over the pad. But when Jock paused for thought or breath she lifted her head and her eyes grew soft and bright, and her foot, in its absurd high-heeled gray boot, beat a smart left! Left! Left-right-left!

Something of this picture T.A. Buck saw in his untasted coffee cup. Much of it Emma visualized in her speeding motor car. All of it Grace knew by heart as she moved about the new, shining house in the Chicago suburb, thinking, planning; feeling his agony, and trying not to admit the transparency of the look about her hands and her temples. So much for Chicago.

* * * * *

At five o’clock Emma left the war to its own devices and dropped in at the loft building in which Featherlooms were born and grew up. Mike, the elevator man, twisted his gray head about at an unbelievable length to gaze appreciatively at the trim, uniformed figure.

“Haven’t seen you around fur many the day, Mis’ Buck.”

“Been too busy, Mike.”

Mike turned back to face the door. “Well, ’tis a great responsibility, runnin’ this war, an’ all.” He stopped at the Featherloom floor and opened the door with his grandest flourish. Emma glanced at him quickly. His face was impassive. She passed into the reception room with a little jingling of buckles and strap hooks.

The work day was almost ended. The display room was empty of buyers. She could see the back of her husband’s head in his office. He was busy at his desk. A stock girl was clearing away the piles of garments that littered tables and chairs. At the window near the door Fisk, the Western territory man, stood talking with O’Brien, city salesman. The two looked around at her approach. O’Brien’s face lighted up with admiration. Into Fisk’s face there flashed a look so nearly resembling resentment that Emma, curious to know its origin, stopped to chat a moment with the two.

Said O’Brien, the gallant Irishman, “I’m more resigned to war this minute, Mrs. Buck, than I’ve been since it began.”

Emma dimpled, turned to Fisk, stood at attention. Fisk said nothing. His face was unsmiling. “Like my uniform?” Emma asked; and wished, somehow, that she hadn’t.

Fisk stared. His eyes had none of the softness of admiration. They were hard, resentful. Suddenly, “Like it! God! I wish I could wear one!” He turned away, abruptly. O’Brien threw him a sharp look. Then he cleared his throat, apologetically.

Emma glanced down at her own trim self–at her stitched seams, her tailored lengths, her shining belt and buckles, her gloved hands–and suddenly and unaccountably her pride in them vanished. Something–something–

She wheeled and made for Buck’s office, her colour high. He looked up, rose, offered her a chair. She felt strangely ill at ease there in the office to which she had given years of service. The bookkeeper in the glass-enclosed cubby-hole across the little hall smiled and nodded and called through the open door: “My, you’re a stranger, Mrs. Buck.”