His eyes rested on the girl in the blue serge and the smart hat.  Emma McChesney saw that.  She saw that his eyes still rested there as he stood on the observation platform when the train pulled out.  The sight did not pain her as she thought it would.  There was success in every line of him as he stood there, hat in hand.  There was assurance in every breath of him.  His clothes, his skin, his clear eyes, his slim body, all were as they should be.  He had made a place in the world.  He was to be a builder of ideas.  She thought of him, and of the girl in blue serge, and of their children-to-be.

Her breast swelled exultingly.  Her head came up.

This was her handiwork.  She looked at it, and found that it was good.

“Let’s strike for the afternoon and call it a holiday,” suggested Buck.

Emma McChesney turned.  The train was gone.  “T.A., you’ll never grow up.”

“Never want to.  Come on, let’s play hooky, Emma.”

“Can’t.  I’ve a dozen letters to get out, and Miss Loeb wants to show me that new knicker-bocker design of hers.”

They drove back to the office almost in silence.  Emma McChesney made straight for her desk and began dictating letters with an energy that bordered on fury.  At five o’clock she was still working.  At five-thirty T.A.  Buck came in to find her still surrounded by papers, samples, models.

“What is this?” he demanded wrathfully, “an all-night session?”

Emma McChesney looked up from her desk.  Her face was flushed, her eyes bright, but there was about her an indefinable air of weariness.

“T.A., I’m afraid to go home.  I’ll rattle around in that empty flat like a hickory nut in a barrel.”

“We’ll have dinner down-town and go to the theater.”

“No use.  I’ll have to go home sometime.”

“Now, Emma,” remonstrated Buck, “you’ll soon get used to it.  Think of all the years you got along without him.  You were happy, weren’t you?”

“Happy because I had somebody to work for, somebody to plan for, somebody to worry about.  When I think of what that flat will be without him—­Why, just to wake up and know that you can say good morning to some one who cares!  That’s worth living for, isn’t it?”

“Emma,” said T.A. evenly, “do you realize that you are virtually hounding me into asking you to marry me?”

“T.A.!” gasped Emma McChesney.

“Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry about, didn’t you?”

  [Illustration:  “’Well, you said you wanted somebody to worry
  about, didn’t you?’”]

A little whimsical smile lay lightly on his lips.

“Timothy Buck, I’m over forty years old.”

“Emma, in another minute I’m going to grow sentimental, and nothing can stop me.”

She looked down at her hands.  There fell a little silence.  Buck stirred, leaned forward.  She looked up from the little watch that ticked away at her wrist.