It was the most natural thing in the world for him to say to her, when they had adjourned to the drawing-room, that if she were in the neighborhood of his office some day she might care to look in on him.

The look he gave her was one of keen understanding, and brought a look of its own kind, warm and flushing, in return.

She came, and there began a rather short liaison.

It was interesting but not brilliant.

The girl did not have sufficient temperament to bind him beyond a period of rather idle investigation.
There was still, for a little while, another woman, whom he had known--a Mrs.Josephine Ledwell, a smart widow, who came primarily to gamble on the Board of Trade, but who began to see at once, on introduction, the charm of a flirtation with Cowperwood.