Flint beamed.  “Do you know why I picked you instead of that Munch dame?...  It’s because you had all the frills of a woman and none of the nastiness.  For instance, you wouldn’t be bothered in the least if I took a notion to overload the office with another pretty girl....  I’ve watched you for some time.  It has taken me six months to make up my mind to fire Miss Whitehead and boost you into her job.”

He stood with an air of condescending arrogance, his thumbs bearing down heavily on his trousers pockets, his broad fingers beating a self-satisfied tattoo upon his thighs.  Claire shrank nearer the table.  “You mean, Mr. Flint, that you dismissed Miss Whitehead merely to give me her position?”

Flint smiled.  “Well, now you’re coming down to brass-headed tacks.  I’m not keen on spelling out the whys and wherefores of anything I do....  But one thing is certain enough—­if Miss Munch had been the only available candidate I could have stood Miss Whitehead....  There ain’t much question about that.”

“Oh, Mr. Flint!  I’m sorry!”

He gave a wide guffaw.  “That only makes you all the more of a corker!” he answered, rubbing his hands together in narrow-eyed satisfaction.

She escaped into the outer office, flushed, but with her head thrown back in an attitude of instinctive defense, and the next instant she literally ran into the arm of a man.

“Why, Miss Robson, but this is pleasant!  I’m just dropping in to see Mr. Flint.”

She drew back.  Mr. Stillman stood smiling before her.

Greetings and questions flowed with all the genial ease of one who is never quite taken unawares.  Claire, outwardly calm, felt overcome with inner confusion.  She passed rapidly to her desk and sat down.

Miss Munch was upon her almost instantly.

“Do you know Ned Stillman?” Miss Munch asked, veiling her real purpose.

“Yes,” replied Claire, with uncomfortable brevity.

“I have a cousin who was housekeeper for his wife’s father....  You know about his wife, of course.”

Claire lifted her clear eyes in a startled glance that was almost as instantly converted into a look of challenge.

“Yes,” she lied.

Miss Munch hesitated, then plunged at once into the issue uppermost in her mind.  “It’s too bad you’ve had to be bothered with Flint’s dictation, Miss Robson.  It just happens I’m writing up a long home-office report, otherwise I’m sure he wouldn’t have annoyed you.”

Claire Robson fixed Miss Munch with a coldly polite stare.  “You’ve made a mistake, Miss Munch.  Mr. Flint has given me no dictation.”  The speech in itself was nothing, but Claire’s tone gave it unmistakable point.  Miss Munch grew white and then flushed.  She turned away without a word, but Claire Robson knew that in a twinkling of an eye she had gained not only an enemy, but an uncommon one.

* * * * *