"All right. I'll look round. I've no hope of finding any one to take your place, but I can get some one who will do."
"You can train any one," said Selma. "Just as you trained me."
"I'll see what's to be done," was all he said.
A week passed—two weeks. She waited; he did not bring up the subject. But she knew he was thinking of it; for there had been a change in his manner toward her—a constraint, a self-consciousness theretofore utterly foreign to him in his relations with any one. Selma was wretched, and began to show it first in her appearance, then in her work. At last she burst out:
"Give that article back to me," she cried. "It's rotten. I can't write any more. Why don't you tell me so frankly? Why don't you send me away?"
"You're doing better work than I am," said he. "You're eager to be off—aren't you? Will you stay a few days longer? I must get away to the country—alone—to get a fresh grip on myself. I'll come back as soon as I can, and you'll be free. There'll be no chance for vacations after you're gone."
"Very well," said she. She felt that he would think this curtness ungracious, but more she could not say.
He was gone four days. When he reappeared at the office he was bronzed, but under the bronze showed fatigue—in a man of his youth and strength sure sign of much worry and loss of sleep. He greeted her almost awkwardly, his eyes avoiding hers, and sat down to opening his accumulated mail. Although she was furtively observing him she started when he abruptly said:
"You know you are free to go—at any time."
"I'll wait until you catch up with your work," she suggested.