Until a few minutes before five Jacqueline remained seated at her desk, motionless, her head buried in her arms. Then she got to her feet somehow, and to her room, where, scarcely conscious of what she was doing, she bathed her face and arranged her hair, and strove to pinch and rub a little colour into her ghastly cheeks.
Desboro came for her in his car at five and found her standing alone in her office, dressed in a blue travelling dress, hatted and closely veiled. He partly lifted the veil, kissed the cold, unresponsive lips, the pallid cheek, the white-gloved fingers.
"Is Her Royal Shyness ready?" he whispered.
"All her affairs of state accomplished?" he asked laughingly.
Again, as the big car rolled away northward, and they were alone once more in the comfortable limousine, he took possession of her unresisting hand, whispering:
"I am so sorry you have had a hard day, dear. You really look very pale and tired."
He lifted her hand to his lips: "Do you love me, Jacqueline?"
"And you know that I love you above everything in the world?"
"Jacqueline!" he urged. "Don't you _know_ it?"
He laughed: "Will Your Royal Shyness never unbend! Is _that_ all the credit you give me for my worship and adoration?"
She said, after a silence: "If it lies with me, you really will love me some day."
"Dearest!" he protested, laughing but perplexed. "Don't you know that I love you _now_--that I am absolutely mad about you?"
She did not answer, and he waited, striving to see her expression through the veil. But when he offered to lift it, she gently avoided him.
"Did you go to business?" she asked quietly.
"I? Oh, yes, I went back to the office. But Lord! Jacqueline, I couldn't keep my attention on the tape or on the silly orders people fired at me over the wire. So I left young Seely in charge and went to lunch with Jack Cairns; and then he and I returned to the office, where I've been fidgeting about ever since. I think it's been the longest day I ever lived."
"It has been a long day," she assented gravely. "Did Mr. Cairns speak to you of Cynthia?"
"Do you remember what he said about her?"
"Well, yes. I think he spoke about her very nicely--about her being interesting and ambitious and talented--something of that sort--but how could I keep my mind on what he was saying about another girl?"