{Illustration: “'You'll never grow up, Emma McChesney'”}
“You'll never grow up, Emma McChesney—at least, I hope you never will. Sit there in the corner and be a good child, and I'll be ready for you in ten minutes.”
Peace settled down on the tiny office. Emma McChesney, there in her corner, surveyed the little room with entire approval. It breathed of things restful, wholesome, comforting. There was a bowl of sweet peas on the desk; there was an Indian sweet grass basket filled with autumn leaves in the corner; there was an air of orderliness and good taste; and there was the pink-cheeked, white-haired woman at the desk.
“There!” said Mary Cutting, at last. She removed her glasses, snapped them up on a little spring-chain near her shoulder, sat back, and smiled upon Emma McChesney.
Emma McChesney smiled back at her. Theirs was not a talking friendship. It was a thing of depth and understanding, like the friendship between two men.
They sat looking into each other's eyes, and down beyond, where the soul holds forth. And because what each saw there was beautiful and sightly they were seized with a shyness such as two men feel when they love each other, and so they awkwardly endeavored to cover up their shyness with words.
“You could stand a facial and a decent scalp massage, Emma,” observed Mary Cutting in a tone pregnant with love and devotion. “Your hair looks a little dry. Those small-town manicures don't know how to give a real treatment.”
“I'll have it to-morrow morning, before the Kid gets in at eleven. As the Lily Russell of the traveling profession I can't afford to let my beauty wane. That complexion of yours makes me mad, Mary. It goes through a course of hard water and Chicago dirt and comes up looking like a rose leaf with the morning dew on it. Where'll we have supper?”
“I know a new place,” replied Mary Cutting. “German, but not greasy.”
She was sorting, marking, and pigeonholing various papers and envelopes. When her desk was quite tidy she shut and locked it, and came over to Emma McChesney.