"You would put heart into a craven," he said, shaking hands.

"You 're no craven," answered Shirley, returning the look steadily with her frank eyes, "but one of the stoutest-hearted I ever knew. I know lots more about you than you think, and I know what you have been facing all these years in the way of sticking to work you did n't like."

"That's nothing. Everybody does that, if he amounts to any thing."

"Everybody doesn't. But it's made you strong and brave. You 're brave now--and you 're going to be braver yet."

He studied her a moment in silence. Then the smile she had missed shone briefly out upon her as Peter said fervently: "If I am, it will be thanks to you, my friend. Good night!"

CHAPTER VI

A BREAKDOWN

"Now make her come!" commanded Marian Hille, as her brother Brant brought his big green motor-car to a stand in front of the great building belonging to Townsend & Company. "Don't let her refuse. How she can spend her days down here, drudging away, I don't see! Brant, tell her I shall simply never forgive her if she does n't shut up that typewriter at once and come along."

"I 'll say what seems to me to suit the situation," declared her brother, sliding out of his seat and divesting himself of his motoring coat. "Whether it will make any impression I 'm not so sure."

He walked leisurely off, but when he was inside the building he made a short trip of it to the fifth floor and the offices. He was quite as anxious as his sister for the success of his errand.

Murray himself welcomed young Hille cordially, and when Brant asked for Shirley, he led his visitor into an inner office. Here Brant stood still, gazing with interest. He had not yet seen his old acquaintance at her new tasks.

Shirley sat before a typewriting machine, her fingers playing as lightly and swiftly over the keys, for all Brant could see, as those of any veteran at the business. The girl did not look up. Plainly she was much absorbed in her work, a little flush on her cheek, her eyes devouring the "copy" before her in the shape of her note-book, held open by a device above her machine.

Brant turned to look at Murray, and Murray smiled.

"She looks as if she enjoyed it!" Brant exclaimed, under his breath.

"She does. No question of that."

"It 'll wear off, don't you think?"

"I doubt it."

He walked over and stood at her elbow, waiting. Shirley paid him no attention while she finished the long business letter before her, and she would not have turned then if her brother had not said quietly, "A caller is waiting to see you, Miss Townsend."

Then she glanced up, and rose, pulling a glove finger from the forefinger of her right hand before she let the visitor take it. "I still seem to give this finger a bit of extra work," she said smiling.

Brant said a complimentary thing or two in recognition of her businesslike command of the typewriter, and then proceeded to put his case.

As she knew, a November house party was in progress at the Hildreth's country place, eighteen miles out. He and Marian had come in on an errand, and were going back. A particularly jolly evening was in prospect. Somebody had suggested that the Hilles bring Shirley back with them, just for the evening. They felt she owed them that much, after so resolutely declining the original invitation for the entire week. Would she not go? It was a rare evening for early November, the air mild, the moon magnificent, the roads like a floor.

The Hildreths wanted her to stay the night; but Brant would rise with the lark and bring her back to town before breakfast, that she might not miss so much as a semicolon of her day's work. Or--as Shirley continued to look doubtful--he urged that, if she preferred, he would actually get her back to-night. Some of the married people would drive in with them for the sake of the run in the moonlight. Please!

"Go, Shirley, and have a fine time," said her brother.

She was only human--and a girl--after all, and after many weeks of close and serious work the prospect of the little spin of an hour's duration, with the "jolly evening," appealed to her. Smiling at Brant's last proposition, Shirley yielded.

"I shall have to go to the house first," she said, setting the cover on her machine and putting away her work. The clock already indicated the end of the working-day in the Townsend office.

"Of course. We 'll take you right up in a jiffy." And Brant led the way to the elevator, his soul filled with satisfaction.

The green car was shortly _chug-chugging_ in front of the Townsend house, while Shirley ran up to exchange her office clothes for the pretty dull red silk frock which seemed to her to fit the November evening.

A sense of exhilaration took possession of her as she pulled on her long driving-coat, and pinned in place the close hat and swathing gray veil which made her ready for the swift drive in the autumn air. To be really a working girl, and yet not to be shut out from an occasional taste of this sort of pleasure--it was certainly a pleasant combination.

And Shirley had accomplished one of the best day's works that she had yet done, and felt as if she had earned whatever of jollity the evening might have in store for her.

"Well, I'm certainly thankful to see you acting like one of us again, if only for a few hours," a.s.serted "Marie Anne," as they whirled away.

"Shirley Townsend in a blue serge at four o'clock in the afternoon is an extraordinary sight. Now you look like yourself again. What have you got on? That Indian-red silk? When you like a thing you like it forever, don't you? I wonder how many times you came down to dinner last winter at Miss c.o.c.kburn's in that red silk!"

"Don't be brutal, Marian!" called her brother, over his shoulder. "As if it made any difference what she wears as long as she comes with us!

Besides, I haven't seen the red silk."

But Shirley was only smiling at Marian's comments on her attire. She had not summered and wintered Miss Hille as a room-mate for two years in the English school not to have become inured to her style of intimate criticism. Besides, she knew perfectly that that Indian-red silk frock had been her friend's envy for the first six weeks of its existence, on account of its beauty and the way it became Shirley's colouring.

It does not take long for a motor-car of high horse-power driven by a young man with the usual dash of daring in his composition to cover eighteen miles of smooth roadway, and it was not yet six o'clock when the car shot up to the entrance of the Hildreth's country place. Half a dozen young people, returning from the golf links, hurried up to welcome Shirley Townsend back to the ranks of the pleasure-seekers, and she was borne into the house on a little wave of good-fellowship and merriment which she could not help decidedly enjoying.

"It's a shame to think of that girl throwing herself away on the sort of fad she 's taken up!" growled Somers Hildreth to Brant Hille, as the two came in, after dressing for dinner, to find Shirley Townsend the centre of a gay group before the great fireplace, which was the heart of the country house.

"I wonder what fault Marian had to find with that dress," Brant was thinking, as he caught its gleam in the firelight and saw the sparkling eyes and warm-tinted cheeks above it. "If she is n't by long odds the finest girl in that crowd I 'll go without my dinner." But aloud he responded, calmly, "It does n't seem to have dulled her charms. She never looked more as if she found things worth while, did she?"

"That's reaction," declared the other young man. "Shut any girl up in a cage, and she'll stretch her wings when she gets out. It will tell on her after a while, though, if she keeps it up. But she won't. That goes without saying."

"Don't you fool yourself!" muttered Brant, adopting Murray Townsend's view of the matter.

Shirley, indeed, did not look like a girl who was accustomed to adopt courses, only to abandon them when weary. Whatever her views of the "things worth while," she certainly enjoyed that evening. Those who had sent for her congratulated themselves on their foresight.

Without making herself in any way a conspicuous figure, or appearing to take the lead, Shirley's very presence seemed somehow to bring about that result most desirable to a hostess, the making things "go." The young people had been together for five successive evenings, and had about exhausted their resources and those of their entertainers in the way of diversion. But with Shirley Townsend's softly brilliant eyes looking on, her spirited mouth curving into mischief or merriment, her appreciative comments spurring them, the young men of the party at least found themselves stimulated to their best achievement, and exerted themselves to bring the response of her pleasure.

As for the girls, they all liked her, although not without here and there a touch of envy at the success of a style so free from affectation that n.o.body could accuse its possessor of not being genuine.

"You can't say you 're not having a good time," urged Hille, cornering Shirley as the evening went on.

"There 's no reason why I should want to say it. I 'm having a delightful time."

"I thought it was part of your code, from now on, to enjoy nothing but hard labour."

Her laugh rang out softly.

"You did n't believe anything of the sort. If all work and no play make Jack a dull boy, what would they do to Jill? She would be unendurable."

"She would. But anybody would have taken alarm at sight of you to-day, over your typewriter. You looked as if you were nothing short of carried away with it. You did n't so much as notice I was in the room."

"I 'm not supposed to notice people who come into Murray's office. I learned that at once, by watching Miss Henley. While I 'm there I 'm to be merely an intelligent machine."