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The next day she missed it from its place, and Clayton's man, interrogated, said he had asked to have it put away somewhere. He did not care for it. Natalie raised her eyebrows. She had thought the poems rather pretty.

One resolution Clayton made, as a result of that night. He would not see Audrey again if he could help it. He was not in love with her and he did not intend to be. He was determinedly honest with himself. Men in his discontented state were only too apt to build up a dream-woman, compounded of their own starved fancy, and translate her into terms of the first attractive woman who happened to cross the path. He was not going to be a driveling idiot, like Chris and some of the other men he knew. Things were bad, but they could be much worse.

It happened then that when Audrey called him at the mill a day or so later it was a very formal voice that came back to her over the wire. She was quick to catch his tone.

"I suppose you hate being called in business hours, Clay!"

"Not at all."

"That means yes, you know. But I'm going even further. I'm coming down to see you."

"Why, is anything wrong?"

He could hear her laughter, a warm little chuckle.

"Don't be so urgent," she said gayly. "I want to consult you. That's all. May I come?"

There was a second's pause. Then,

"Don't you think I'd better come to see you?"

"I've only a little flat. I don't think you'll like it."

"That's nonsense. Where is it?"

She gave him the address.

"When shall I come?"

"Whenever it suits you. I have nothing to do. Say this afternoon about four."

That "nothing to do" was an odd change, in itself, for Audrey had been in the habit of doling out her time like sweetmeats.

"Where in the world have you been all this time?" he demanded, almost angrily. To his own surprise he was suddenly conscious of a sense of indignation and affront. She had said she depended on him, and then she had gone away and hidden herself. It was ridiculous.

"Just getting acquainted with myself," she replied, with something of her old airy manner. "Good-by."

His irritation passed as quickly as it came. He felt calm and very sure of himself, and rather light-hearted. Joey, who was by now installed as an office adjunct, and who commonly referred to the mill as "ours," heard him whistling blithely and cocked an ear in the direction of the inner room.

"Guess we've made another million dollars," he observed to the pencil-sharpener.

Clayton was not in the habit of paying afternoon calls on women. The number of such calls that he had paid without Natalie during his married life could have been numbered on the fingers of his two hands. Most of the men he knew paid such visits, dropping in somewhere for tea or a highball on the way uptown. He had preferred his club, when he had a little time, the society of other men.

He wondered if he should call Natalie and tell her. But he decided against it. It was possible, for one thing, that Audrey still did not wish her presence in town known. If she did, she would tell Natalie herself. And it was possible, too, that she wanted to discuss Chris, and the reason for his going.

He felt a real sense of relief, when at last he saw her, to find her looking much the same as ever. He hardly knew what he had expected. Audrey, having warned him as to the apartment, did not mention its poverty again. It was a tiny little place, but it had an open fire in the living-room, and plain, pale-yellow walls, and she had given it that curious air of distinction with which she managed, in her casual way, to invest everything about her.

"I hope you observe how neat I am," she said, as she gave him her hand. "My rooms, of course."

"Frightfully so."

He towered in the low room. Audrey sat down and surveyed him as he stood by the fire.

"It is nice to have a man about again."

"Do you mean to say you have been living here, without even visitors, for two months?"

"You'll laugh. Clay, I'm studying!"

"Studying! What?"

"Stenography. Oh, it's not as bad as that. I don't have to earn my living.