“Did he come?”

“No, he couldn’t think that fast.  He just stood still, looking at me, while I threw her open, and you could see his lantern for a mile back—­he never moved.  He had a good six-mile walk back to the last station.”

There was a long silence.  Bannon got up and walked slowly up and down the enclosure with his hands deep in his pockets.

“I wish this would let up,” he said, after a time, pausing in his walk, and looking again at the window.  “It’s a wonder we’re getting things done at all.”

Hilda’s eye, roaming over the folded newspaper, fell on the weather forecast.

“Fair tomorrow,” she said, “and colder.”

“That doesn’t stand for much.  They said the same thing yesterday.  It’s a worse gamble than wheat.”

Bannon took to walking again; and Hilda stepped down and stood by the window, spelling out the word “Calumet” with her ringer on the misty glass.  At each turn, Bannon paused and looked at her.  Finally he stood still, not realizing that he was staring until she looked around, flushed, and dropped her eyes.  Then he felt awkward, and he began turning over the blue prints on the table.

“I’ll tell you what I’ll have to do,” he said.  “I rather think now I’ll start on the third for Montreal, I’m telling you a secret, you know.  I’m not going to let Brown or MacBride know where I’ll be.  And if I can pick up some good pictures of the river, I’ll send them to you.  I’ll get one of the Montmorency Falls, if I can.  They’re great in winter.”

“Why—­why, thank you,” she said.  “I’d like to have them.”

“I ain’t much at writing letters,” he went on, “but I’ll send you the pictures, and you write and tell me how things are going.”

She laughed softly, and followed the zigzag course of the raindrop with her finger.

“I wouldn’t have very much to say,” she said, speaking with a little hesitation, and without looking around.  “Max and I never do much.”

“Oh, you can tell how your work goes, and what you do nights.”

“We don’t do much of anything.  Max studies some at night—­a man he used to work for gave him a book of civil engineering.”

“What do you do?”

“I read some, and then I like to learn things about—­oh, about business, and how things are done.”

Bannon could not take his eyes from her—­he was looking at her hair, and at the curved outline of one cheek, all that he could see of her face.  They both stood still, listening to the patter of the rain, and to the steady drip from the other end of the office, where there was a leak in the roof.  Once she cleared her throat, as if to speak, but no words came.

There was a stamping outside, and she slipped back to the ledger, as the door flew open.  Bannon turned to the blue prints.

Max entered, pausing to knock his cap against the door, and wring it out.

“You ought to have stayed out, Mr. Bannon,” he said.  “It’s the greatest thing you ever saw—­doesn’t sag an inch.  And say—­I wish you could hear the boys talk—­they’d lie down and let you walk on ’em, if you wanted to.”