She saw the street lights come twinkling out, and she did not turn on the light of the sitting room chandelier.  Did he love her at all; or if he did, did he know what this waiting all day meant to a woman?  Then, it came to her in a flash, his wistful look in the morning behind the forced gayety, his reference to the last ride, to keeping resolutions.  Was that resolution for the sake of his work at all; or for her?  Of course, Matthews had told him in the Desert; and with the thought, the weight that had oppressed her rolled from her heart.  She jumped from her chair and uttered a low cry of happy laughter.

“Oh, I’ll soon make short work of that resolution,” she vowed.

Alas and alas!  Samson straining his manhood for strength to shore up a resolution, and here was a sharpening of scissors to shear him well!

There was a knock on the door.  She thought it the waiter coming up with a late dinner and had called “come in,” when the door opened, and in the glare of light from the hall way stood the news editor, embarrassed and hesitating.

“Please come in.”  She pressed the electric button, shook hands with him and shut the door.  His air was at once apologetic and glad, but all the bitterness and anger seemed to have gone.  He stood holding his soft felt hat in his hand and looking through his glasses, very steadily and kindly, Eleanor thought.

“Won’t you sit down?”

“We newspaper chaps should pretty nearly apologize for coming into your presence, Miss MacDonald,” he began.  “I’ve wanted to tell you how we fellows all regret that.  I hope you know that kind of thing doesn’t come from inside the office.  It comes from influences outside.”

He had seated himself shading his eyes from the light with his hand, an old trick of his compositor days, and still looked at her in the same friendly way.

“Ever hear of the Down-East daily that black-guarded one of our greatest presidents the very day he died?  I’ve often wondered if the public realized when that item appeared that not an editor on the staff knew it was coming out, that when two of the editors read it, they cried and went to pieces right there and then before their men for very shame!  Item had been sent straight to the composing room just before the forms were locked up, by man who owned the paper.  President had refused him some public concession.  Such things sometimes happen to lesser folks than presidents.”

“Were you so kind as to come here to say all this to me?” asked Eleanor.

“No, Miss MacDonald, I wasn’t!” He blushed furiously, like a boy caught in the act culpable.  “Fact is, I’m keen to see Wayland, been such a crush of men round him all day, haven’t been able to get in a word with him.”

It was her turn to blush furiously.

“I didn’t want him to go off up the Valley before I could get hold of him.  I wanted to have a shake with him.  We’re in the same boat now, Miss MacDonald.”