He handed her the first sheaf of papers. But, before she began to read: "I'll say this much. Miss Sharp, of Berg Brothers, Omaha--the one you warned against as the human cactus--had me up for dinner.

Well, I know you don't, but it's true. Her father and I hit it off just like that. He's a character, that old boy. Ever meet him? No?

And Miss Sharp told me something about herself that explains her porcupine pose. That poor child was engaged to a chap who was killed in the Spanish-American war, and she----"

"Kate Sharp!" interrupted Emma McChesney. "Why, T. A. Buck, in all her vinegary, narrow life, that girl has never had a beau, much less----"

Buck's eyebrows came up slightly.

"Emma McChesney, you haven't developed--er--claws, have you?"

With a gasp, Emma McChesney plunged into the papers before her. For ten minutes, the silence of the room was unbroken except for the crackling of papers. Then Emma McChesney put down the first sheaf and looked up at her business partner.

"Is that a fair sample?" she demanded.

"Very," answered T. A. Buck, and handed her another set.

Another ten minutes of silence. Emma McChesney reached out a hand for still another set of papers. The pink of repressed excitement was tinting her cheeks.

"They're--they're all like this?"

"Practically, yes."

Mrs. McChesney faced him, her eyes wide, her breath coming fast.

"T. A. Buck," she slapped the papers before her smartly with the back of her hand, "this means you've broken our record for Middle Western sales!"

"Yes," said T. A., quietly. "Dad would have enjoyed a morning like this, wouldn't he?"

Emma McChesney stood up.

"Enjoyed it! He is enjoying it. Don't tell me that T. A., Senior, just because he is no longer on earth, has failed to get the joy of knowing that his son has realized his fondest dreams. Why, I can feel him here in this room, I can see those bright brown eyes of his twinkling behind his gla.s.ses. Not know it! Of course he knows it."

Buck looked down at the desk, smiling curiously.

"D'you know, I felt that way, too."

Suddenly Emma McChesney began to laugh. It was not all mirth--that laugh. Buck waited.

"And to think that I--I kindly and patronizingly handed you a little book full of tips on how to handle Western buyers, 'The Salesman's Who's Who'--I, who used to think I was the witch of the West when it came to selling! You, on your first selling-trip, have made me look like--like a shoe-string peddler."

Buck put out a hand suddenly.

"Don't say that, Emma. I--somehow it takes away all the pleasure."

"It's true. And now that I know, it explains a lot of things that I've been puzzling about in the last twenty-four hours."

"What kind of things?"

"The way you look and act and think. The way you carry your head. The way you sit in a chair. The very words you use, your gestures, your intonations. They're different."

T. A. Buck, busy with his cigar, laughed a little self-consciously.

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "You're imagining things."

Which remark, while not a particularly happy one, certainly was not in itself so unfortunate as to explain why Mrs. McChesney should have turned rather suddenly and bolted into her own office across the hall and closed the door behind her.

T. A. Buck, quite cool and unruffled, viewed her sudden departure quizzically. Then he took his cigar from his mouth and stood eying it a moment with more attention, perhaps, than it deserved, in spite of its fine aroma. When he put it back between his lips and sat down at his desk once more he was smiling ever so slightly.

Then began a new order of things in the offices of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company. Feet that once had turned quite as a matter of course toward the door marked "MRS. MCCHESNEY," now took the direction of the door opposite--and that door bore the name of Buck.

Those four months of Mrs. McChesney's absence had put her partner to the test. That acid test had washed away the acc.u.mulated dross of years and revealed the precious metal beneath. T. A. Buck had proved to be his father's son.

If Mrs. McChesney noticed that the head office had miraculously moved across the hall, if her sharp ears marked that the many feet that once had paused at her door now stopped at the door opposite, if she realized that instead of, "I'd like your opinion on this, Mrs.

McChesney," she often heard the new, "I'll ask Mr. Buck," she did not show it by word or sign.

The first of October found buyers still flocking into New York from every State in the country. Shrewd men and women, these--bargain hunters on a grand scale. Armed with the long spoon of business knowledge, they came to skim the cream from factory and workroom products set forth for their inspection.

For years, it had been Emma McChesney's quiet boast that of those whose business brought them to the offices and showrooms of the T. A. Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company, the foremost insisted on dealing only with her. She was proud of her following. She liked their loyalty.

Their preference for her was the subtlest compliment that was in their power to pay. Ethel Morrissey, whose friendship dated back to the days when Emma McChesney had sold Featherlooms through the Middle West, used to say laughingly, her plump, comfortable shoulders shaking, "Emma, if you ever give me away by telling how many years I've been buying Featherlooms of you, I'll--I'll call down upon you the spinster's curse."

Early Monday morning, Mrs. McChesney, coming down the hall from the workroom, encountered Miss Ella Sweeney, of Klein & Company, Des Moines, Iowa, stepping out of the elevator. A very skittish Miss Sweeney, rustling, preening, conscious of her dangling black earrings and her Robespierre collar and her beauty-patch. Emma McChesney met this apparition with outstretched, welcoming hand.

"Ella Sweeney! Well, I'd almost given you up. You're late this fall.

Come into my office."

She led the way, not noticing that Miss Sweeney came reluctantly, her eyes on the closed door across the way.

"Sit down," said Emma McChesney, and pulled a chair nearer her desk.

"No; wait a minute! Let me look at you. Now, Ella, don't try to tell me that THAT dress came from Des Moines, Iowa! Do I! Why, child, it's distinctive!"

Miss Sweeney, still standing, smiled a pleased but rather preoccupied smile. Her eyes roved toward the door.

Emma McChesney, radiating good will and energy, went on:

"Wait till you see our new samples! You'll buy a million dollars'

worth. Just let me lead you to our new Walk-Easy bifurcated skirt. We call it the 'one-stepper's delight.'" She put a hand on Ella Sweeney's arm, preparatory to guiding her to the showrooms in the rear. But Miss Sweeney's strange reluctance grew into resolve. A blush, as real as it was unaccustomed, arose to her bepowdered cheeks.

"Is--I--that is--Mr. Buck is in, I suppose?"

"Mr. Buck? Oh, yes, he's in."

Miss Sweeney's eyes sought the closed door across the hall.

"Is that--his office?"

Emma McChesney stiffened a little. Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"You have guessed it," she said crisply. "Mr. Buck's name is on the door, and you are looking at it."

Miss Sweeney looked down, looked up, twiddled the chain about her neck.

"You want to see Mr. Buck?" asked Emma McChesney quietly.