Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/67

of letters, slitting the envelopes and sorting the outcries into some classification of her own. Outwardly nothing had altered, but everything seemed to have lost its meaning. What a desolate emptiness gaped beneath the firm routine of her daily life. She was struck by the irony of the fact that the only one in the office who seemed to notice that something was amiss was the one person whom she disliked—Mr. Sikes. He came in about something or other, and then stayed, looking at her intently.

"You look sick," he said. "What's the matter, is the love feast getting on your nerves?"

With a queer twitching at the corners of her mouth, she forced herself to say some trifling remark. He leaned over her and put his hand on hers. She caught the strong cigarry whiff of his clothes, which sickened her.

"Too much love in the abstract," he said, insinuatingly. "What you need is a little love in the concrete."

If he—or any one—had spoken tenderly to her, she would have burst into tears. But the boorishness of his words was just the tonic she needed. She looked at him with flashing eyes, and was about to say: "Keep to some topic you understand." Then she dared not say it, for now she