circumstances, and that it would be distinctly the part of wisdom to wait until there was less going on.  Mr. Rattray had an indefinite idea that in case of a rejection he might find it necessary to go out of town for some weeks to pull himself together again—­it was the traditional course—­and if such an exigency occurred before July the office would go to pieces under the pressure of events.  So he waited, becoming every day more enthusiastically aware of the great advantage of having Miss Bell permanently connected with the paper under supervision which would be even more highly authorized than an editor’s, and growing at the same time more thoroughly impressed with the unusual character of her personal charm.  Elfrida was a “find” to Mr. Arthur Rattray from a newspaper point of view—­a find he gave himself credit for sagaciously recognizing, and one which it would be expedient to obtain complete possession of before its market value should become known.  And it was hardly possible for Mr. Rattray to divest himself of the newspaper point of view in the consideration of anything which concerned him personally.  It struck him as uniquely fortunate that his own advantage and that of the Age should tally, as it undoubtedly might in this instance; and that, for Arthur Rattray, was putting the matter in a rather high, almost disinterested connection.

It is doubtful whether to this day Mr. Rattray fully understands his rejection, it was done so deftly, so frankly, yet with such a delicate consideration for his feelings.  He took it, he assured himself afterward, without winking; but it is unlikely that he felt sufficiently indebted to the manner of its administration, in congratulating himself upon this point.  It may be, too, that he left Miss Bell with the impression that her intention never to marry was not an immovable one, given indefinite time and indefinite abstention, on his part, from alluding to the subject.  Certainly he found himself surprisingly little cast down by the event, and more resolved than ever to make the editor-in-chief admit that Elfrida’s contributions were “the brightest things in the paper,” and act accordingly.  He realized, in the course of time, that he had never been very confident of any other answer; but nothing is more certain than that it acted as a curious stimulus to his interest in Elfrida’s work.  He found a co-enthusiast in Golightly Ticke, and on more than one occasion they agreed that something, must be done to bring Miss Bell before the public, to put within her reach the opportunity of the success she deserved, which was of the order Mr. Rattray described as “screaming.”

“So far as the booming is concerned,” said Mr. Rattray to Mr. Ticke, “I will attend to that; but there must be something to boom.  We can’t sound the loud tocsin on a lot of our own paras.  She must do something that will go between two covers.”

The men were talking in Golightly’s room over easeful Sunday afternoon cigars; and as Rattray spoke they heard a light step mount the stairs.  “There she is now,” replied Ticke.  “Suppose we go up and propose it to her?”