“The arrangement was to continue for as long as I wished.  But only one month’s payment was made in advance.  With Friday, Dr. Farr’s obligation toward me ends.  He is not likely to extend it.”

She sat so still that he forgot how slippery the moss was and thought only of the growing shadow on her face.

“But, the work!” she murmured.  “We are only just beginning.  I wish—­ oh, I shall miss it dreadfully.”

“‘It,’” said Spence, “is not a personal pronoun.”

“I shall miss you, too, of course.”

“Well, be careful not to overemphasize it.”

Her grey eyes looked frankly and straightly into his.  Their clear depths held a rueful smile.  “You are conceited enough already,” she said, “but if it will make you feel any better, I don’t mind admitting that I shall miss you far, far more than you deserve.”

“Spoken like a lady!” said Spence warmly.  “And now let us consider my side of it.  After the month that I have spent here—­do you really think that I intend to go away—­like that?”

“There is only one way of going, isn’t there?”

“Not at all.  There are various ways.  Ways which are quite, quite different.”

“You have thought of some other—­some quite different way?”

“Yes.  But I daren’t tell it to you while you sit on that slippery rock.  It is a somewhat startling way and you might—­er—­manifest emotion.  I should prefer to have you manifest it in a less dangerous place.”

Desire’s very young laugh rippled out.  “Fussy!” she said.  But nevertheless she climbed down and sat demurely upon stones in the hollow.  There was an unfamiliar light in her waiting eyes, the light of interest and of hope.

Spence, rather to his consternation, realized that it was up to him to justify that hope.  And he wasn’t at all sure . . . however, he had to go through with it, . . .  There was a fighting chance, anyway.

“Let’s think about the work for a moment,” he began nervously.  “That work, my book, you know, is simply going all to pot if you can’t keep on with it.  You can see yourself what it means to have a competent secretary.  And you like the work.  You’ve just admitted that you like it.”

He saw the light begin to fade from her eyes.  She shook her head.

“If you are going to suggest that I go with you as your secretary,” she said with her old bluntness, “it is useless.  I have tried that way out.  I won’t try it again.”  Her lips grew stern and her eyes dark with some too bitter memory.

“I honestly don’t see what Dr. Farr could do,” said Spence tentatively.

“You would,” said Dr. Farr’s daughter with decision.

“And anyway,” proceeding hastily, “that wasn’t what I was thinking of.  I knew that you would refuse to go as my secretary.  I ask you to go as my wife.”

Desire rose.

“Is this where I am expected to manifest emotion?” she asked dryly.