What could have made her so irritable, poor little girl?  She didn’t look well; or—­perhaps it was her work.  He was sorry for all women who worked.  And Flossie—­she was such an utter woman.  That touch of exaggeration in the curves of her soft figure made her irresistibly, superlatively feminine.  To be sure, as he had hinted in that unguarded moment, her beauty was of the kind that suggests nothing more interesting than itself.  Yet there were times when it had power over him, when he was helpless and stupid before it.  And now, as he leaned back looking at her, his intellect seemed to melt away gradually and merge in dreamy sense.  They sat for a while, still without speaking; then he suddenly bent forward, gazing into her eyes.

“What is it, Flossie?  Tell me.”

Flossie turned away her face from the excited face approaching it.

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing.  Can’t you see I’m only tired.  I’ve ’ad a hard day.”

“I thought you never had hard days at the Bank?”

“No.  No more we do—­not to speak of.”

“Then it’s something you don’t like to speak of.  I say—­have the other women been worrying you?”

“No, I should think not indeed.  Catch any one trying that on with me!”

“Then I can’t see what it can be.”

“I daresay you can’t.  You don’t know what it is!  It’s not much, but it’s the same thing day after day, day after day, till I’m sick and tired of it all!  I don’t see any end to it either.”

“I’m so sorry, Floss,” said Rickman in a queer thick voice.  She had turned her face towards him now, and its expression was inscrutable—­to him.  To another man it would have said that it was all very well for him to be sorry; he could put a stop to it soon enough if he liked.

“Oh—­you needn’t be sorry.”

“Why not?  Do you think I don’t care?”

Immense play of expression on Flossie’s face.  She bit her lip; and that meant that he might care no end, or he mightn’t care a rap, how was she to know?  She smiled a bitter smile as much as to say that she didn’t know, neither did she greatly care.  Then her lips quivered, which meant that if by any chance he did care, it was a cruel shame to leave a poor girl in the dark.

“Care?  About the Bank?” she said at last.  “You needn’t.  I shan’t stand it much longer.  I shall fling it up some of these days; see if I don’t.”

“Would that be wise?”

“I don’t know whether it’s wise or not.  I know I can’t go on like this for ever.”

“Yes, but would anything else be better, or even half as good?  You didn’t get much fun out of that last place, you know.”

“Well, for all the fun I get out of that old Bank, I might as well be in a ladies’ boarding school.  If I thought it would end in anything—­but it won’t.”

“How do you know?  It may end in your marrying a big fat manager.”

“Don’t be silly.”