“I love you so—­that I could be jealous even of her—­of that little girl in your office.  Fred, I didn’t confess all the truth.  It isn’t true that I thought her—­a nobody.  When she first came in here—­it was in this very room—­I thought she was as near nothing as any girl I’d ever seen.  Then she began to change—­as you said.  And—­oh, dearest, I can’t help hating her!  And when I tried to get her away from you, and she wouldn’t come——­”

“Away from me!” he cried, laughing.

“I felt as if it were like that,” she pleaded.  “And she wouldn’t come—­and treated me as if she were queen and I servant—­only politely, I must say, for Heaven knows I don’t want to injure her——­”

“Shall I have her discharged?”

“Fred!” exclaimed she indignantly.  “Do you think I could do such a thing?”

“She’d easily get another job as good.  Tetlow can find her one.  Does that satisfy you?”

“No,” she confessed.  “It makes me feel meaner than ever.”

“Now, Jo, let’s drop this foolish seriousness about nothing at all.  Let’s drop it for good.”

“Nothing at all—­that’s exactly it.  I can’t understand, Fred. What is there about her that makes her haunt me?  That makes me afraid she’ll haunt you?”

Norman felt a sudden thrill.  He tightened his hold upon her hands because his impulse had been to release them.  “How absurd!” he said, rather noisily.

“Isn’t it, though?” echoed she.  “Think of you and me almost quarreling about such a trivial person.”  Her laugh died away.  She shivered, cried, “Fred, I’m superstitious about her.  I’m—­I’m—­afraid!” And she flung herself wildly into his arms.

“She is somewhat uncanny,” said he, with a lightness he was far from feeling.  “But, dear—­it isn’t complimentary to me, is it?”

“Forgive me, dearest—­I don’t mean that.  I couldn’t mean that.  But—­I love you so.  Ever since I began to love you I’ve been looking round for something to be afraid of.  And this is the first chance you’ve given me.”

“I’ve given you!” mocked he.

She laughed hysterically.  “I mean the first chance I’ve had.  And I’m doing the best I can with it.”

They were in good spirits now, and for the rest of the evening were as loverlike as always, the nearer together for the bit of rough sea they had weathered so nicely.  Neither spoke of Miss Hallowell.  Each had privately resolved never to speak of her to the other again.  Josephine was already regretting the frankness that had led her to expose a not too attractive part of herself—­and to exaggerate in his eyes the importance of a really insignificant chit of a typewriter.  When he went to bed that night he was resolved to have Tetlow find Miss Hallowell a job in another office.

“She certainly is uncanny,” he said to himself.  “I wonder why—­I wonder what the secret of her is.  She’s the first woman I ever ran across who had a real secret. Is it real?  I wonder.”