“This inner door is always unlocked,” she explained, with maternal gentleness.

Peter Coleman colored.

“I see—­I am a bally ass!” he said, laughing.

“You ought to know,” Susan conceded politely.  And suddenly her dimples were in view, her blue eyes danced as they met his, and she laughed too.

This was a rare opportunity, the office was empty, Susan knew she looked well, for she had just brushed her hair and powdered her nose.  She cast about desperately in her mind for something—­ anything!—­to keep the conversation going.  She had often thought of the words in which she would remind him of their former meeting.

“Don’t think I’m quite as informal as this, Mr. Coleman, you and I have been properly introduced, you know!  I’m not entirely flattered by having you forget me so completely, Mr. Coleman!”

Before she could choose either form, he said it himself.

“Say, look here, look here—­didn’t my uncle introduce us once, on a car, or something?  Doesn’t he know your mother?”

“My mother’s dead,” said Susan primly.  But so irresistible was the well of gaiety bubbling up in her heart that she made the statement mirthful.

“Oh, gosh, I do beg your pardon—­” the man stammered.  They both, although Susan was already ashamed of herself, laughed violently again.

“Your uncle knows my aunt,” she said presently, coldly and unsmilingly.

“That’s it,” he said, relieved.  “Quite a French sentence, ’does the uncle know the aunt’?” he grinned.

“Or ’Has the governess of the gardener some meat and a pen’?” gurgled Susan.  And again, and more merrily, they laughed together.

“Lord, didn’t you hate French?” he asked confidentially.

“Oh, hate it!” Susan had never had a French lesson.

There was a short pause—­a longer pause.  Suddenly both spoke.

“I beg your pardon—?”

“No, you.  You were first.”

“Oh, no, you.  What were you going to say?”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.  I was just going to say—­I was going to ask how that pretty, motherly aunt of yours is,—­Mrs. Baxter?”

“Aunt Clara.  Isn’t she a peach?  She’s fine.”  He wanted to keep talking, too, it was obvious.  “She brought me up, you know.”  He laughed boyishly.  “Not that I’d want you to hold that against her, or anything like that!”

“Oh, she’ll live that down!” said Susan.

That was all.  But when Peter Colernan went on his way a moment later he was still smiling, and Susan walked to her desk on air.

The office seemed a pleasant place to be that afternoon.  Susan began her work with energy and interest, the light falling on her bright hair, her fingers flying.  She hummed as she worked, and one or two other girls hummed with her.