If any one had accused her of feeling very meritorious over not having
allowed herself to be hurt at his rudeness to her or annoyed at the way
he had demolished their evening's plans, and of hoping to make him feel
a little contrite by showing him how sweet she was about it, she might,
with a rueful grin, have acknowledged a tincture of truth about the
charge; but she didn't discover it by herself. As she dreamed out the
little scene, riding down-town in the car, she'd come stealing up behind
him as he sat, bent wearily over his book, and clasp her hands over his
eyes and stroke the wrinkles out of his forehead. He'd give a long sigh
of relaxation, and pull her down on the chair-arm and tell her what it
was that troubled him, and she'd tell him not to worry--it was surely
coming out all right. And she'd stroke his head a little longer and
offer not to go to the dinner if he wanted her to stay, and he'd say,
no, he was better already, and then she'd give him a good-by kiss and
steal away, and be the life of the party at the Randolphs' dinner, but
her thoughts would never leave him....

She knew she was being silly of course, and her beautiful wide mouth
smiled an acknowledgment of the fact, even while her checks flushed and
her eyes brightened over the picture. Of course it wouldn't come out
exactly like that.

Well, it didn't!

She found a single elevator in commission in the great gloomy rotunda of
the office building, and the watchman who ran her up made a terrible
noise shutting the gate after he had let her out on the fifteenth floor.
The dim marble corridor echoed her footfalls ominously, and when she
reached the door to his outer office and tried it, she found it locked.