“Nothing,” said Janet....
At two o'clock, when Ditmar returned to the office, he called Miss Ottway, who presently came out to summon Janet to his presence. Fresh, immaculate, yet virile in his light suit and silk shirt with red stripes, he was seated at his desk engaged in turning over some papers in a drawer. He kept her waiting a moment, and then said, with apparent casualness:—“Is that you, Miss Bumpus? Would you mind closing the door?”
Janet obeyed, and again stood before him. He looked up. A suggestion of tenseness in her pose betraying an inner attitude of alertness, of defiance, conveyed to him sharply and deliciously once more the panther-like impression he had received when first, as a woman, she had come to his notice. The renewed and heightened perception of this feral quality in her aroused a sense of danger by no means unpleasurable, though warning him that he was about to take an unprecedented step, being drawn beyond the limits of caution he had previously set for himself in divorcing business and sex. Though he was by no means self-convinced of an intention to push the adventure, preferring to leave its possibilities open, he strove in voice and manner to be business-like; and instinct, perhaps, whispered that she might take alarm.
“Sit down, Miss Bumpus,” he said pleasantly, as he closed the drawer.
She seated herself on an office chair.
“Do you like your work here?” he inquired.
“No,” said Janet.
“Why not?” he demanded, staring at her.
“Why should I?” she retorted.
“Well—what's the trouble with it? It isn't as hard as it would be in some other places, is it?”