"Good morning," she said, going at once to his desk; "I'm sorry about what happened the other night. I was startled and bewildered."
Isadore knew that she had been taken unawares—that the kiss did not belong to him by rights.
"If there's any apology necessary," he said, "I'm the one to make it. I was as much startled and bewildered as you were. I'm sorry if you feel bad about it."
"We'll forget it," Yetta said.
Isadore did not look as if he were certain on this point.
They fell again into the accustomed rut of comradeship. Neither of them spoke again of the outburst. No one in the office noticed any change in their relationship.
But there was a change. Isadore could never forget that wonderful moment; he could never be quite the same. And Yetta—when in time the memory of it lost its element of excitement, when she got over being afraid that Isadore might begin again—found that she also had changed. The fact that Isadore loved her passionately had taken a definite place in her consciousness. She could not ignore this any more, as she had done before. In a way it made him more interesting. She did not for a moment think of marrying him—she loved Walter. But she was sorry for Isadore. They had this added thing in common—the pain of a hopeless love.
It seemed wildly unjust to her that she might not in any way show her sympathy to him without encouraging his love—making him "hope." She knew when he was tired and discouraged; she would have liked to cheer him. She sometimes sewed on a button for Harry Smith. She ordered Levine about severely. She did not like either of them half as much as she did Isadore, but she must not show him any of these womanly attentions. It was stupid and vexatious that just because Isadore loved her, she must be carefully and particularly unfriendly to him.
Paulding was raising Yetta's salary among his personal friends, and his check came to her directly without passing through the general treasury. Her work kept her out of the office most of the time, and it was not until her second year that she chanced to be at her desk on a Saturday morning. About twelve-thirty Harry Moore came in from the composing-room, where he had been attending to the lock-up. He leaned back in his chair and stretched wearily.
"About time for the 'ghost' to walk," he said.