Said O’Brien, the gallant Irishman, “I’m more resigned to war this minute, Mrs. Buck, than I’ve been since it began.”

Emma dimpled, turned to Fisk, stood at attention.  Fisk said nothing.  His face was unsmiling.  “Like my uniform?” Emma asked; and wished, somehow, that she hadn’t.

Fisk stared.  His eyes had none of the softness of admiration.  They were hard, resentful.  Suddenly, “Like it!  God!  I wish I could wear one!” He turned away, abruptly.  O’Brien threw him a sharp look.  Then he cleared his throat, apologetically.

Emma glanced down at her own trim self—­at her stitched seams, her tailored lengths, her shining belt and buckles, her gloved hands—­and suddenly and unaccountably her pride in them vanished.  Something—­something—­

She wheeled and made for Buck’s office, her colour high.  He looked up, rose, offered her a chair.  She felt strangely ill at ease there in the office to which she had given years of service.  The bookkeeper in the glass-enclosed cubby-hole across the little hall smiled and nodded and called through the open door:  “My, you’re a stranger, Mrs. Buck.”

“Be with you in a minute, Emma,” said T.A.  And turned to his desk again.  She rose and strolled toward the door, restlessly.  “Don’t hurry.”  Out in the showroom again she saw Fisk standing before a long table.  He was ticketing and folding samples of petticoats, pajamas, blouses, and night-gowns.  His cigar was gripped savagely between his teeth and his eyes squinted, half closed through the smoke.

She strolled over to him and fingered the cotton flannel of a garment that lay under her hand.  “Spring samples?”

“Yes.”

“It ought to be a good trip.  They say the West is dripping money, war or no war.”

“’S right.”

“How’s Gertie?”

“Don’t get me started, Mrs. Buck.  That girl!—­say, I knew what she was when I married her, and so did you.  She was head stenographer here long enough.  But I never really knew that kid until now, and we’ve been married two years.  You know what the last year has been for her; the baby and all.  And then losing him.  And do you know what she says!  That if there was somebody who knew the Western territory and could cover it, she’d get a job and send me to war.  Yessir!  That’s Gert.  We’ve been married two years, and she says herself it’s the first really happy time she’s ever known.  You know what she had at home.  Why, even when I was away on my long spring trip she used to say it wasn’t so bad being alone, because there was always my home-coming to count on.  How’s that for a wife!”

“Gertie’s splendid,” agreed Emma.  And wondered why it sounded so lame.

“You don’t know her.  Why, when it comes to patriotism, she makes T.R. look like a pacifist.  She says if she could sell my line on the road, she’d make you give her the job so she could send her man to war.  Gert says a travelling man’s wife ought to make an ideal soldier’s wife, anyway; and that if I went it would only be like my long Western trip, multiplied by about ten, maybe.  That’s Gertie.”