In half an hour more Roberta’s machine stopped clicking.  Swiftly she covered it, set it away in the book-cupboard, and put her table in order.  She laid the typewritten sheets together upon Judge Gray’s desk in a straight-edged pile, a paperweight on top.  In her simple dress of dark blue, trim as any office woman’s attire, she might have been a hired stenographer—­of a very high class—­putting her affairs in order for the day.

Richard waited till she approached his desk, which she had to pass on her way out.  Then he rose to his feet.

“Allow me to congratulate you,” said he, “on having accomplished a long task in the minimum length of time possible.  I am lost in wonder that a hand which can play the ’cello with such art can play the typewriter with such skill.”

“Thank you.”  There was a flash of mirth in her eyes.  “There’s music in both if you have ears to hear.”

“I have recognized that to-day.”

“You never heard it before?  Music in the hammer on the anvil, in the throb of the engine, in the hum of the dynamo.”

“And in the scratch of the pen, the pounding of the boiler shop, and the—­the—­slide and grind of the trolley-car, I suppose?”

“Indeed, yes—­even in those.  And there’ll surely be melody in the closing of the door which shuts you in to solitude after this distracting day.  Listen to it!  Good-bye.”

He long remembered the peculiar parting look she gave him, satiric, mischievous, yet charmingly provocative.  She was keen of mind, she was brilliant of wit, but she was all woman—­no doubt of that.  He was suddenly sure that she had known well enough all day the effect that she had had upon him, and that it had amused her.  His cheek reddened at the thought.  He wondered why on earth he should care to pursue an attempt at acquaintance with one whose manner with him was frequently so disturbing to his self-conceit.  Well, at least he must forget her now, and redeem himself with an hour’s solid effort.

But, strange to say, although he had found it difficult to work in her presence, in her absence he found it impossible to work at all.  He stuck doggedly to his desk for the appointed hour, then gave over the attempt and departed.  The moral of all this, which he discovered he could not escape, was that though he had taken his university degree, and had supplemented the academic education with the broader one of travel and observation, he had not at his command that first requisite for efficient labour:  the power of sustained application.  In a way he had been dimly suspicious of this since the day he had begun this pretence of work for his grandfather’s old friend.  To-day, at sight of a girl’s steady concentration upon a wearisome task in spite of his own supposably diverting presence, it had been brought home to him with force that he was unquestionably reaping that inevitable product of protracted idleness:  the loss of the power to work.