“Why, to-morrow morning; no, to-morrow is Friday.  Better come next Monday and begin the week.  That will give you one day more off, and the hot wave a chance to get past.”  Flynn spoke facetiously.  It was a very hot day, and the air in the office like a furnace.  He wiped his forehead, to which the dark rings of hair clung.  The girl at the desk glanced around adoringly at him.

“I would rather not stop for that if you want me to begin at once,” said Ellen.

Flynn looked abashed.  “Oh, we’d rather have you begin on the even week—­it makes less bother over the account,” he said.  “Monday morning at seven sharp, then.”

“Yes,” said Ellen.

Flynn walked off with an abrupt duck of his head.  He somehow felt that he had been rebuffed, and Ellen rose.

“I told you you’d get one,” said the girl at the desk.  “Catch Ed Flynn not giving a pretty girl a job.”  She said it with an accent of pain as well as malice.  Ellen looked at her with large, indignant eyes.  She had not the least idea what she meant, at least she realized only the surface meaning, and that angered her.

“I suppose he gave me the job because there was a vacancy,” she returned, with dignity.

The other girl laughed.  “Mebbe,” said she.

Ellen continued to look at her, and there was something in her look not only indignant, but appealing.  Nellie Stone’s expression changed again.  She laughed uneasily.  “Land, I didn’t mean anything,” said she.  “I’m glad for you that you got the job.  Of course you wouldn’t have got it if there hadn’t been a chance.  One of the girls got married last week, Maud Millet.  I guess it’s her place you’ve got.  I’m real glad you’ve got it.”

“Thank you,” said Ellen.

“Good-bye,” said the girl.

“Good-bye,” replied Ellen.

On Monday morning the heat had broken, and an east wind with the breath of the sea in it was blowing.  Ellen started for her work at half-past six.  She held her father’s little, worn leather-bag, in which he had carried his dinner for so many years.  The walk was so long that it would scarcely give her time to come home at noon, and as for taking a car, that was not to be thought of for a moment on account of the fare.

Ellen walked along briskly, the east wind blew in her face, she smelled the salt sea, and somehow it at once soothed and stimulated her.  Without seeing the mighty waste of waters, she seemed to realize its presence; she gazed at the sky hanging low with a scud of gray clouds, which did not look unlike the ocean, and the sense of irresponsibility in the midst of infinity comforted her.

“I am not Ellen Brewster after all,” she thought.  “I am not anything separate enough to be worried about what comes to me.  I am only a part of greatness which cannot fail of reaching its end.”  She thought this all vaguely.  She had no language for it, for she was very young; it was formless as music, but as true to her.