The hat was one of those tiny, pert, head-hugging trifles that only a very pretty woman can wear. A merciless little hat, that gives no quarter to a blotched skin, a too large nose, colorless eyes. Emma McChesney stood before the mirror, the cruel little hat perched atop her hair, ready to give it the final and critical bash which should bring it down about her ears where it belonged. But even now, perched grotesquely atop her head as it was, you could see that she was going to get away with it.

It was at this critical moment that the office door opened, and there entered T. A. Buck, president of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat and Lingerie Company. He entered smiling, leisurely, serene-eyed, as one who antic.i.p.ates something pleasurable. At sight of Emma McChesney standing, hatted before the mirror, the pleasurable look became less confident.

"h.e.l.lo!" said T. A. Buck. "Whither?" and laid a sheaf of businesslike- looking papers on the top of Mrs. McChesney's well cleared desk.

Mrs. McChesney, without turning, performed the cramming process successfully, so that her hat left only a sub-halo of fluffy bright hair peeping out from the brim.

Then, "Playing hooky," she said. "Go 'way."

T. A. Buck picked up the sheaf of papers and stowed them into an inside coat-pocket. "As president of this large and growing concern,"

he said, "I want to announce that I'm going along."

Emma McChesney adjusted her furs. "As secretary of said firm I rise to state that you're not invited."

T. A. Buck, hands in pockets, stood surveying the bright-eyed woman before him. The pleasurable expression had returned to his face.

"If the secretary of the above-mentioned company has the cheek to play hooky at 3:30 P.M. in the middle of November, I fancy the president can demand to know where she's going, and then go too."

Mrs. McChesney unconcernedly fastened the clasp of her smart English glove.

"Didn't you take two hours for lunch? Had mine off the top of my desk.

Ham sandwich and a gla.s.s of milk. Dictated six letters between bites and swallows."

A frown of annoyance appeared between T. A. Buck's remarkably fine eyes. He came over to Mrs. McChesney and looked down at her.

"Look here, you'll kill yourself. It's all very well to be interested in one's business, but I draw the line at ruining my digestion for it.

Why in Sam Hill don't you take a decent hour at least?"

"Only bricklayers can take an hour for lunch," retorted Emma McChesney. "When you get to be a lady captain of finance you can't afford it."

She crossed to her desk and placed her fingers on the electric switch.

The desk-light cast a warm golden glow on the smart little figure in the trim tailored suit, the pert hat, the shining furs. She was rosy- cheeked and bright-eyed as a schoolgirl. There was about her that vigor, and glow, and alert a.s.surance which bespeaks congenial work, sound sleep, healthy digestion, and a sane mind. She was as tingling, and bracing, and alive, and antiseptic as the crisp, snappy November air outdoors.

T. A. Buck drew a long breath as he looked at her.

"Those are devastating clothes," he remarked. "D'you know, until now I always had an idea that furs weren't becoming to women. Make most of 'em look stuffy. But you--"

Emma McChesney glanced down at the shining skins of m.u.f.f and scarf.

She stroked them gently and lovingly with her gloved hand.

"M-m-m-m! These semi-precious furs _are_ rather satisfactory--until you see a woman in sealskin and sables. Then you want to use 'em for a hall rug."

T. A. Buck stepped within the radius of the yellow light, so that its glow lighted up his already luminous eyes--eyes that had a trick of translucence under excitement.

"Sables and sealskin," repeated T. A. Buck, his voice vibrant. "If it's those you want, you can--"

Snap! went the electric switch under Emma McChesney's fingers. It was as decisive as a blow in the face. She walked to the door. The little room was dim.

"I'm sending my boy through college with my sealskin-and-sable fund,"

she said crisply; "and I'm to meet him at 4:30."

"Oh, that's your appointment!" Relief was evident in T. A. Buck's tone.

Emma McChesney shook a despairing head. "For impudent and unquenchable inquisitiveness commend me to a man! Here! If you must know, though I intended it as a surprise when it was finished and furnished--I'm going to rent a flat, a regular six-room, plenty-of-closets flat, after ten years of miserable hotel existence. Jock's running over for two days to approve it. I ought to have waited until the holidays, so he wouldn't miss cla.s.ses; but I couldn't bear to. I've spent ten Thanksgivings, and ten Christmases, and ten New Years in hotels. h.e.l.l has no terrors for me."

They were walking down the corridor together.

"Take me along--please!" pleaded T. A. Buck, like a boy. "I know all about flats, and gas-stoves, and meters, and plumbing, and everything!"

"You!" scoffed Emma McChesney, "with your five-story house and your summer home in the mountains!"

"Mother won't hear of giving up the house. I hate it myself. Bathrooms in those darned old barracks are so cold that a hot tub is an icy plunge before you get to it." They had reached the elevator. A stubborn look appeared about T. A. Buck's jaw. "I'm going!" he announced, and scudded down the hail to his office door. Emma McChesney pressed the elevator-b.u.t.ton. Before the ascending car showed a glow of light in the shaft T. A. Buck appeared with hat, gloves, stick.

"I think the car's downstairs. We'll run up in it. What's the address?

Seventies, I suppose?"

Emma McChesney stepped out of the elevator and turned. "Car! Not I! If you're bound to come with me you'll take the subway. They're asking enough for that apartment as it is. I don't intend to drive up in a five-thousand-dollar motor and have the agent tack on an extra twenty dollars a month."

T. . Buck smiled with engaging agreeableness. "Subway it is," he said.

"Your presence would turn even a Bronx train into a rose-garden."

Twelve minutes later the new apartment building, with its cream-tile and red-brick Louis Somethingth facade, and its tan brick and plaster Michael-Dougherty-contractor back, loomed before them, soaring even above its lofty neighbors. On the door-step stood a maple-colored giant in a splendor of scarlet, and gold braid, and glittering b.u.t.tons. The great entrance door was opened for them by a half-portion duplicate of the giant outside. In the foyer was splendor to grace a palace hall. There were great carved chairs. There was a ma.s.sive oaken table. There were rugs, there were hangings, there were dim-shaded lamps casting a soft glow upon tapestry and velours.

Awaiting the pleasure of the agent, T. A. Buck, leaning upon his stick, looked about him appreciatively. "Makes the Knickerbocker lobby look like the waiting-room in an orphan asylum."

"Don't let 'em fool you," answered Emma McChesney, _sotto voce,_ just before the agent popped out of his office. "It's all included in the rent. d.i.n.ky enough up-stairs. If ever I have guests that I want to impress I'll entertain 'em in the hall."

There approached them the agent, smiling, urbane, pleasing as to manner--but not too pleasing; urbanity mixed, so to speak, with the leaven of caution.

"Ah, yes! Mrs.--er--McChesney, wasn't it? I can't tell you how many parties have been teasing me for that apartment since you looked at it. I've had to--well--make myself positively unpleasant in order to hold it for you. You said you wished your son to--"

The glittering little jewel-box of an elevator was taking them higher and higher. The agent stared hard at T. A. Buck.

Mrs. McChesney followed his gaze. "My business a.s.sociate, Mr. T. A.

Buck," she said grimly.

The agent discarded caution; he was all urbanity. Their floor attained, he unlocked the apartment door and threw it open with a gesture which was a miraculous mixture of royalty and generosity.

"He knows you!" hissed Emma McChesney, entering with T. A. "Another ten on the rent. "The agent pulled up a shade, switched on a light, straightened an electric globe. T. A. Buck looked about at the bare white walls, at the bare polished floor, at the severe fireplace.

"I knew it couldn't last," he said.

"If it did," replied Emma McChesney good-naturedly, "I couldn't afford to live here," and disappeared into the kitchen followed by the agent, who babbled ever and anon of views, of Hudsons, of express-trains, of parks, as is the way of agents from Fiftieth Street to One Hundred and 'Umpty-ninth.

T. A. Buck, feet spread wide, hands behind him, was left standing in the center of the empty living-room. He was leaning on his stick and gazing fixedly upward at the ornate chandelier. It was a handsome fixture, and boasted some of the most advanced ideas in modern lighting equipment. Yet it scarcely seemed to warrant the pa.s.sionate scrutiny which T. A. Buck was bestowing upon it. So rapt was his gaze that when the telephone-bell shrilled unexpectedly in the hallway he started so that his stick slipped on the polished floor, and as Emma McChesney and the still voluble agent emerged from the kitchen the dignified head of the firm of T. A. Buck and Company presented an animated picture, one leg in the air, arms waving wildly, expression at once amazed and hurt.

Emma McChesney surveyed him wide-eyed. The agent, unruffled, continued to talk on his way to the telephone.

"It only looks small to you," he was saying. "Fact is, most people think it's too large. They object to a big kitchen. Too much work." He gave his attention to the telephone.